


Rebel Rebel

by rudbeckia



Category: Dredd (2012), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Adam Driver/Domhnall Gleason Character Combinations, Enemies to Lovers, First Time, First Time Blow Jobs, Fluff, Hand Jobs, Kylo Ren is Not Matt the Radar Technician, M/M, Oh no there’s only one shower, Techienician, Virgin Matt, kylux adjacent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:26:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21620929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rudbeckia/pseuds/rudbeckia
Summary: Matt the Radar Technician is assigned a job he can’t do and it’s not fair. He’s a radar tech, not a droid tech. But when he enters Interrogation Room One to attempt a repair to Kylo Ren’s very own interrogation droid, he meets a very important prisoner.It’s General Armitage Hux’s brother, Will.And Will needs to escape before Armitage finds out from Kylo Ren that he’s there.Maybe this awkward, square-peg technician is his ticket off the Finalizer.And maybe Matt needs an escape route too.
Relationships: Clan Techie (Dredd)/Matt the Radar Technician
Comments: 15
Kudos: 61
Collections: Kylux Fanworks Secret Santa 2019





	1. And there was only one sanisteam

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theweddingofthefoxes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theweddingofthefoxes/gifts).



> With thanks to my very kind and tactful beta readers: @unicornsNbutane for helping me overcome my “wall of text” formatting issues, and @dreamykylux for helping me with plot and character clarifications, and further enabling my comma habit. Also cosleia, for feedback on the chapter 2 smut when I just couldn’t look at it any more.  
> Ch3 will appear late Dec

Matt sits in his usual place in the technical corps briefing room with a half-drunk cup of caf in his hand and an empty seat on either side. His datapad rests in his other hand and the day’s job assignments pop onto the screen one by one as his boss sends them out. When his first repair job arrives, he reads it with a grunt of disappointment

“Matt?”

Matt frowns up from his datapad. “This isn’t a radar job. I’m a radar specialist. One of the other techs should do it,” he says, voice starting harsh but ending in a whine. He points at someone. “What about Alise?”

The supervisor shakes her head and speaks in slow, deliberate tones that set Matt’s teeth on edge. “No. Alise is with me on the comms glitch on deck six. Your assignment is not up for debate.”

Matt’s datapad clatters to the table surface and his arms fold as he leans back in his chair. “Fine.” he huffs. “It’ll be your fault if something goes wrong with long range radar and I’m not there to fix it or if I mess up this job because I’m not the droid expert.”

“You better get expert pretty kriffing quick,” his boss snaps. “Look who ordered the repair.”  
Matt opens the job details and scans the form looking for the name at the bottom. When he finds it, his stomach churns and his lungs stop for a few seconds. His eyes open wide and his pout recedes. “Fine,” he says with a long sigh. “I’ll fix Kylo Ren’s interrogation droid.”

The boss sends out a few other assignments and clarifies the details on some extensive welding work required to repair scorch marks in the wall of the General’s chambers then the techs all troop out to stock their tool vests, laughing and joking as soon as they think they are clear of the boss’s hearing. Matt is lost in thought and ignores all the usual barbed comments aimed at him. Today, despite all his boasting and blustering about having seen him in the communal ’fresher that one time, might be the first time he gets to speak to Kylo Ren directly. He decides with a lopsided grin that he will _definitely_ speak to him, but since Kylo Ren has a reputation for being a loner like him, he won’t ask for a selfie.

Twisting and shrugging under the weight of his tool belt, Matt makes his way to interrogation room one. He pauses at the end of the corridor, looking from the corner at the two stormtroopers standing guard. He frowns and marches up close.

“I’m here to repair the droid,” he blurts. “Kylo Ren’s orders.”

Neither guard moves. After an uncomfortable few seconds of staring first at one impassive white helmet then the other, Matt holds up his datapad with the order form.

A sound comes from the trooper on the left, long and breathy. “Whatever. Knock yourself out.” The trooper on the right just laughs.

Matt glances from one to the other again then presses the panel that reads his biometrics and the door slides open.

Blinking and standing still until his eyes adjust to the dimness, Matt knows there is someone else here. There’s a very human smell of sweat and fear and unwashed clothes. He can’t hear breath rasping through a mask so it is not Kylo Ren. He sighs in disappointment. “Hello,” he begins, “I’m here to—” 

He’s silenced by the thin, high wail that comes from the interrogation chair. When it subsides, he continues, “fix the droid. I’m just here to fix stuff. I’m a tech. I’m Matt. I’m a radar technician, really, but I got sent to fix the droid. I’m not a droid tech, so it’s not fair really, but—”  
He bites off the rest of his words. He could be telling an important prisoner useful information that might harm The First Order and Kylo Ren.  
“I’ll get to work and I won’t tell you anything else. Lights one hundred percent.”

The lights come up and the prisoner screams.

“Lights off!”

Matt waits a minute in darkness, then his eyes show shadows and greys and the amber, blue and red glow of the control panels. “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he says. “I’m not here for that.”

There’s no reply. He thinks of that one time he hurt his eyes and ended up in medbay after a stray electrical discharge hit him. 

“Okay. Lights ten percent.” There’s a barely perceptible brightening of the down-lighters, and no scream. “Twenty percent?”

Now he can see enough to get around the room. He walks closer to the interrogation chair, where a captive is restrained. There is not enough light to see more than muted colours, but he makes out a grubby yellow shirt and space-pale skin, dark lines where hair is plastered across a white forehead.

“Can I turn the lights up more? Thirty percent? Then I could use my flashlight, and you could close your eyes.”

The lights brighten a little at the words and Matt stares, breath still in his lungs, as two dark, wide eyes reflect blue at him.

“Kriff!” he exclaims. “What happened to you? That’s not standard interrogation protocol.”

“No.” The voice is a barely a croak. “And you’re not Kylo Ren.”

Matt’s frown eases, as the realisation dawns on him. “No, I’m not Kylo Ren,” he replies with a smile. “I hoped Kylo Ren would be here. I was going to ask him for a—”

“I’m glad you’re not him. You look like him. In the dark, at least. Not up close.”

“Oh!” Matt’s frown returns, and he stops himself from saying _thanks._ “I suppose, ha, I suppose you don’t want to see Kylo Ren. I mean, given your position.”

The blue, blue eyes blink at him. Matt swallows and sucks his lips. The prisoner, although unkempt and roughed-up looking, is kind of attractive. Pretty in a fragile way. Matt realises he’s staring and looks away.

“Well. The droid. Fix. I’m a tech.” He rummages in his overstuffed tool belt and brandishes a hexdriver.

“Me, too,” the pale man says. “Techie. They always called me Techie.”

“Is that your name? Techie?”

“No. I’m... I used to be called Will—”

“Can I call you Will?”

“—Hux.”

Matt hears the clang of his hexdriver hitting the durasteel at the same time as the name sinks into his brain.

“Hux,” he repeats weakly. “Will Hux.”

“Here,” the captive says, as if responding to a too-early roll call.

“You’re Will Hux.”

“Yes.”

Matt takes a step back, and orders the lights to fifty percent. Warily, he regards the pale, slim, lank-haired man in restraints His eyes are tightly shut under pale eyebrows, and it seems likely that with a wash the grease-darkened dark hair would be the colour of burnished copper.

“Your... brother...” Matt begins to say, but stops.

“My older brother is Armitage Hux.”

“You’re the General’s brother!” Despite his sense of alarm, Matt steps closer for a better look. Everyone knows General Hux’s fine featured face and perfect enunciation from the twice-daily motivation holos. Will keeps his eyes closed, but there’s no doubt in Matt’s mind that he’s telling the truth.

“You look just like him! At least, you would do if you had a sonic, a uniform, and a haircut. People said you didn’t really exist, because there are no records,” Matt gushes, “but I always believed you were real. What happened to you?”

Will screws up his eyes for a few seconds and Matt orders the lights back to thirty percent.

“Let me get up and I’ll tell you,” he says. “I won’t try to escape.”

Matt worries at his lip and frowns again. “Promise?”

“I promise.”

Reasoning that Will Hux, grimy, emaciated and exhausted from whatever ordeal he has been put through by Kylo Ren (your ultimate boss who will crush you if this man bolts, Matt’s brain supplies) won’t be much of a physical challenge if he tries to run, Matt picks up and pockets his hexdriver, then examines the controls of the interrogation chair. 

“Don’t try to escape,” Matt instructs, wagging a finger and frowning as if talking to one of the younglings that sometimes shadow workers to learn about First Order careers. “I’m much stronger than you and I could restrain you again in seconds. I know how to use a blaster. And a lightsaber. And there are two stormtroopers right outside that door.”

Will laughs weakly. “I won’t. Do you have one? On you? A lightsaber? Or a blaster?”

Matt sighs and pushes the controls that disengage Will’s restraints. “No. Just a couple of welding rods. Only Kylo Ren is allowed to have a lightsaber. Hey!” A thought strikes him as he watches Will sit up and rub at his wrists. “If you’re General Hux’s brother, why is Kylo Ren keeping you here? Does he know who you are? I bet the General will be pleased to have you back and—” 

“Shut up!”

Matt takes a half step back at the force of Will’s voice. “You sound just like him too. The general, I mean.”

Will stands up slowly, sways and sits down, then tries again. Without a second thought, Matt offers his arm to help steady Will on his next attempt, then helps him take a few staggering steps around the room.

“How long have you been here?” Matt asks. Will shrugs and makes a noncommittal, little grunt. “Don’t know, huh? Well. I can’t let you out, but I could comm General Hux, or one of his lieutenants maybe, and they’ll get you out.”

“No!” Desperation drips from that one simple syllable. “Please, don’t do that.”

“Why not?” Matt frowns in confusion. “He’s your brother. If I was your long-lost brother, I’d want to—”

“He’s the reason I went missing. He can’t know I’m here.”

“Huh?” Matt gapes at Will, who is still slowly pacing the room with a tight grip on Matt’s arm.

“Armitage hates me. He’s our father’s little indiscretion, but I’m... I’m not a... I’m Maratelle and Brendol Hux’s legitimate son. Armitage wanted me out of the way, so he had me dumped on some dustball planet. Probably ordered me killed, but Captain Cardinal felt sorry for me. Gave me some ration packs and left me somewhere I’d be found.”

“No way!” Matt’s so shocked, he steps away. Will lurches as the arm he’s gripping moves, and falls against Matt. Matt catches him before he slithers to the floor, and helps him back to the chair. 

Will chooses to sit on the floor instead. “Didn’t you come here to fix a droid?”, he snaps.

For a few seconds, Matt watches Will curl up on the floor with his face hidden, then he goes to the control panel and tries to activate the droid. There’s a low hum, then a pop, accompanied by a dancing sparkle of blue arc-light from the corner of the room, and Will curls in on himself even tighter. Matt walks over to the droid, and examines the fried circuitry and charred fragments that exude the characteristic stench of overheated semiconductors. He tuts and shakes his head.

“Yeah I see the problem here.” He spares a glance at Will. “I can’t fix this. Needs a droid specialist, and I’m a radar technician. Like I told them, but they wouldn’t listen.”

Will doesn’t move.

“I need you to get back in the chair,” Matt says. “I won’t put the restraints on, though.”

Will still doesn’t move. Matt gets onto the floor beside him. He reaches out one hand, but stops short of touching Will’s shoulder or patting his hair. He thinks that if Will was _his_ brother, he’d do anything he could to see that Will was safe and cared for. He sighs as he considers his options. He should, of course, lift Will into the chair and put the restraints back on, leave the room and request that the boss reassign the job. Because the identity of a captive is none of his concern. Or he could tell someone that the general’s missing brother has been found after a long ordeal at the hands of... of... someone. Probably the loathsome republic. But when he plays out both of these scenarios to the end, the inevitable fate of Will Hux makes him itch and shift around uncomfortably.

“Will, I’m going to get you out of here,” he says, and the decision makes the pit of his stomach flutter, now that he’s firmed it up with words. “I don’t know how yet, but you need to be in that chair next time the troopers check on you, or they’ll be rough. Okay? I’ll come back, when I have a plan.”

Slowly, Will uncoils, and allows Matt to help him up.

“You won’t,” Will says quietly.

“I never break my promises,” Matt retorts. He closes the binders around empty air and activates them with a click of a button. “Just you see. Wait here.”

“Like I have a choice,” Will says, dully.

Matt rummages in his tool belt, and produces the ration bar he’d stashed for his midmorning snack. Will snatches it from him, and devours it in under thirty seconds. Matt grins. “I’ll bring you some more food,” he says. “And I won’t tell anyone who you are.”

Matt exits the interrogation room and walks along the corridor, tapping his datapad to try to request that the repair be reassigned. Just as he sees that his boss already reassigned the task to Alise an hour ago—like he _kriffing_ suggested—he walks straight into someone else. Matt growls out a complaint. 

“Mind where you’re go—”

He stops, face sliding from annoyance into terror, as he recognises the hulking form in black robes and chrome-striped helmet. Matt looks down. “Uh! Um. Sorry, sir.”

“You,” Kylo Ren says. “Technician. Come with me. Now.” 

Ren turns, cape swirling, and walks away. Matt follows, wondering if Kylo Ren is going to kill him, if it will hurt much, and if his mind is being read at that very moment. He concentrates as best he can, over and over in his head: _I met the great Kylo Ren! I can tell all the other techs how amazing he is. What an imposing presence. If I live. Please don’t kill me._

Kylo Ren leads Matt to a turbolift and punches in a code. When they emerge, they are on a habitation deck with wider corridors than his own, and the doors spaced further apart. Kylo Ren leads him to one of the doors, opens it and points inside. Matt swallows down his fear and walks in. Kylo Ren follows.

“Fix that,” he says, pointing, then walks out. Matt looks at the damaged environmental control panel with such sudden relief that his knees buckle.

It’s an easy job compared to the droid repair, and when it’s done, Matt looks around the sparsely furnished rooms with reverent awe. He’s in Kylo Ren’s suite! Had he been given advance notice on a job sheet that he would be assigned to a repair in Kylo Ren’s personal quarters, he might have given it over to his imagination, expected to see a few holocrons in a display cabinet, maybe a few treasures from past mission successes, but definitely a lot more hair products on the shelf in the private ‘fresher. Matt smiles to himself. Clearly, the great Kylo Ren is above hoarding mere possessions. 

He looks around once more, admiring the ancient-looking quill and inkstand set on the desk, when his eyes alight on an item of clothing on the floor. He picks it up. It’s a voluminous, black cape with a hood. Matt knows he shouldn’t. If Kylo Ren returned, he’d be dead with the air stopped in his lungs.

It fits him perfectly.

Matt folds down the cloak as small as it will go, then tucks it under his arm. After checking that the corridor is empty, he smartly marches back along it. Matt the radar technician, hunching in his khaki shirt and orange tool belt, steps into the turbolift. But the figure who steps out on the interrogation deck stands taller than Matt usually does, and walks with long strides, the cloak obscuring his identity. The disguise isn’t perfect, but the stormtroopers stand aside for him, and a lieutenant gives him a single, terrified glance, before scurrying out of his way. Clearly, Matt thinks through his nerves, not many people really look at Kylo Ren.

At Will’s prison door, the two troopers clatter to attention, and one of them opens the door for him. Matt breaks his stride, and lets his shoulders sag as soon as the door closes behind him. Will is out of the chair in a heartbeat, cowering behind it.

“Come out, it’s only me,” Matt says, throwing back the hood to reveal dark blond curls, and flapping the cloak open to show the orange straps of his tool belt. “I said I’d come back, when I had a plan.”

Blue eyes peer at him and blink.

“Did he come in here? Kylo Ren?”

Will shakes his head. Matt heaves a sigh of relief and takes a pair of magnabinders from a rack on the wall. 

“Good. You need to wear these, but I won’t lock them. I’m going to walk you right out of here.” Matt sucks his lip. “You can walk, right?” Will nods. “Okay. Do exactly what I say. You have to look like you believe I’m Kylo Ren.”

Will nods again. He holds out his hands for the magnabinders, and Matt closes them around his wrists until they click, but he doesn’t activate the magnetic lock.

“Walk in front of me. Turn right, when we’re out, then right again. Got that?”

“Right, right.” Will faces the door.

“It’s bright out there. Will it hurt you? Keep your head down.” Will shrugs. “Okay.” Matt closes the cloak and pulls the hood over his head, so that all anyone might see is a shadowed glimpse of the lower half of his face. “Let’s go.”

To Matt’s surprise, nobody challenges them. In fact, they encounter very few personnel on the short journey to the emergency stairwell, and none at all on the long slog up from the prison deck to the lowliest habitation deck. Matt takes off the cloak, and looks out onto a corridor busy with black-uniformed petty officers and khaki jumpsuit-clad techs. He turns to smile at Will.

“We can walk normally from here,” he says. “Wait right here. I promise, I’ll be back. Ten minutes.”

Matt leaves with the black cloak rolled up under his arm and returns nine minutes later, out of breath, carrying a khaki bundle.

“Wear these,” he says. “I can’t do anything about your hair, so if we meet a supervisor, you’re in for a roasting. Just apologise, mumble if they ask who you are, and promise you’re on your way to get a sonic and a haircut.”

Will pulls the jumpsuit on over his filthy clothes and follows Matt out, walking closely behind him. They pass dozens of people, but nobody pays them any attention. After a few turns down connecting passages, Matt opens a door and pulls Will inside.

“What’s your plan?” Will asks, looking around the small, dimly lit bunk-room.

Matt is silent for a few seconds. “Dunno really,” he admits to the floor. “Hadn’t thought further than getting you out of there. You’ll be safe here for a while, though. I never get visitors. You hungry?”

Will nods. Matt opens a cabinet and brings out two ration packs. He hands one to Will, and opens the other himself. “I gotta go finish my shift. You should wait here. I’ll have thought of something by then.”

“I’m a tech,” Will says. “I could work with you. Can I have your datapad?” 

Matt frowns at Will. Will blinks and rubs his eyes. “I might be tempted to go wandering if I got bored. You’d get into a lot of trouble if I was caught.”

Matt reluctantly hands over his datapad. “I’ll get into trouble for losing that,” he says. “Don’t go anywhere.”

Losing his datapad turns out to be the least of Matt’s troubles for the rest of his shift. There are stormtroopers everywhere. This is not unusual in itself but these guys stop and ask questions instead of shouldering him if he doesn’t get out of the way fast enough. The tech briefing room is in disarray with furniture overturned and bewildered-looking techs standing around, talking in whispers and murmurs. Matt straightens the table, picks up a chair and tucks it under, then catches the eyes of one of his colleagues, second in command of their team and comms specialist, called Danfyn. He looks away immediately.

“They came for the boss,” Danfyn says. “And Alise.”

“What for?” Matt asks.

“Something about an escaped prisoner. A dangerous one.”

“What’s it got to do with the boss and Alise?”

“Boss reassigned your droid job to Alise as soon as we all left. Don’t you ever check your datapad?”

“Sorry, Dany. Lost it.”

Danfys rolls her eyes and takes her own datapad out of a large pocket on her thigh and holds it out. “News is all on the internal holonet. I’m in charge now so when everyone’s back I’ll reassign jobs. Kylo Ren lost his prisoner but at least he’ll get his droid fixed.”

Matt sits at the far end of the table and taps at the borrowed datapad. Fear and guilt gnaw at his gut as he takes in the brief details. A prisoner escaped while an interrogation room was being serviced. The troopers on guard swear they saw nothing out of the ordinary and are awaiting interrogation alongside two members of the technical corps. Matt stands abruptly. Heads turn at the scrape of his chair.

“Yeah,” Danfys says. “Hard to think you can end up being a scapegoat just for being assigned the wrong job.”

“It was my job,” Matt blurts, unsure of what he might say next.

“We know,” Danfys replies, looking a little more kindly on Matt. “Could just as easily have been you they took. Look, there’s a repair needed in hangar eight. Shuttle radar on the blink. You take it, Matt.”

“Okay.” Matt looks at the details, hands the borrowed datapad back, and leaves.

He goes to his own bunk-room first as fast as his long legs will carry him.

“We have to hide,” is the first thing he says as the door opens for him. Will, sitting on his bunk, looks up.

“No, we have to leave,” Will says. “I used your datapad to slice into the main processor. Kylo Ren knows who I am, knows I used to work with rebels and knows I am missing. Won’t be long before you’re implicated.”

“You worked with the rebels?” Matt only just catches his voice rising and stifles his yell, hissing out the words instead.

“Like that’s the worst thing I ever did,” Will says with a hint of sarcasm. “Yes, I worked with the rebels. They were good to me. Then I got found by this Kylo Ren guy. He killed the others and kept me.”

Matt stares, mouth actually gaping. “You’re a rebel,” he says eventually.

“Are you going to turn me in and save your friends?” Will asks. “I’d like to know now. You probably should.”

Matt closes his mouth with a click of teeth. He sighs at the man perched cross-legged on his bunk. “No. I...” He takes a deep breath, preparing to confess aloud to something he has known for a long time. “I don’t fit in here. I want to leave. We could leave together.”

“Oh?” Will raises an eyebrow. “You got friends you could go to?”

Matt deflates. “No. Kinda hoped—”

“Oh well. I can probably find us somewhere. All we need is a shuttle or a transport. And a pilot, if we can get one.”

Cogs start to click into place in Matt’s head and he smiles hopefully. 

“I think I can make that happen. But first,” he looks Will up and down. “You need to look like a member of the First Order. Come with me.”

Matt grabs the bag that hangs from the hook beside his door and leads Will out along the corridor. It’s mid-shift silent and Matt’s heart beats harder for the awareness that what he wants to do goes against all his training. Will follows close enough, but Matt reaches his hand behind him anyway and Will grabs and holds on. At a grey, scuffed door, Matt pauses and frowns at Will. 

“I have some sanisteam credits. May as well use them up. Might be the last shower we ever get to take.”

Will perks up. “Real hot water?”

Matt grins. He shouldn’t feel this light for someone about to commit treason. Or desertion. Or whatever. “Yeah,” he says. “There’s only one though. We’ll have to share.”

It’s a good thing Will is slightly built, Matt thinks as he slips his chip into the reader and eyes the time allocation. He’s already nude, clean-enough clothes folded on a bench, soiled overall exchanged for clean at the roto-dispenser. Barely looking at the slender, pale figure of his new friend, he gestures at Will to come into the cubicle beside him and warm water hisses over them both. Will hisses too and Matt frowns at him.

“You okay?”

“Stings a bit. My eyes.”

Matt examines the reddened skin for a few seconds and frowns at the crude letters inked into the skin above Will’s eyebrow. He looks down and sees a collection of small round and crescent scars on Will’s chest and stomach. 

“Yeah,” Matt says quietly, deciding that Will would probably rather he didn’t ask right now. “There’s something in the water. Disinfectant. You either get used to it, or you use the sonic. I’ll pick you up a bacta spray. Can I wash your hair?”

Will’s eyes stay tight shut and his hands don’t move to the soap dispenser on the wall. They stay right where they have been since Matt told him to undress and dump his stinking clothes. Over his genitals.

“Um,” Matt says, suddenly embarrassed that Will is embarrassed and he hadn't noticed until now. “I guess when you live with shared facilities for long enough it stops mattering. People seeing, I mean. People share shower credits all the time. Not with me, but... well. You know. Want me to close my eyes too?”

Will doesn’t answer beyond a slight nod so Matt collects a palmful of soap, closes his eyes and feels for where Will’s head should be. Will flinches then relaxes with a mumbled apology and Matt lathers his hair, massaging his scalp and then spreads soapy hands over Will’s shoulders and back. Will leans close enough that his arms touch Matt’s chest and he jerks back again.

“It’s okay,” Matt says. “There’s not much room in here. I don’t mind if you bump into me. Give me your hand.” Matt touches Will’s arm, and Will tentatively puts his hand on Matt’s, tensed as if ready to snatch it back. Matt guides Will’s hand to the dispenser and presses the lever that plops a blob of soap onto Will’s hand. “Soap. I guess you’d rather take care of your, um, most personal hygiene yourself. Quickly though, there’s only a minute left before my credit runs out.”

Matt feels Will’s body move this way and that as he cleans himself, and Matt quickly washes too. Their elbows and shoulders and knees collide in the small cubicle so the final minute starts with mumbled apologies and ends with giggles as Will somehow angles the spray up Matt’s nose, making him curse and sneeze. Ten seconds after a low buzzing sound, the water shuts off and dry air blasts their backs. 

Without thinking about it, Matt finger-combs Will’s hair so that it dries back from his face and he studies the rough, angular tattoo scrawled up from just above Will’s eyebrow, but again he hoards his questions for another time. Will closes his eyes and submits to the scrutiny. Forced to stand up straight in the small space, Matt realises that Will is almost as tall as he is. He cups Will’s head gently and, before he loses his nerve, leans in and presses a kiss to his cheek.

“Is that a tradition in the First Order?” Will asks. “Share a shower and then kiss?”

“No,” Matt confesses. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have.”

“We could make it a tradition if you like.”

Will’s eyes are open and Matt watches the cybernetic implants adjust focus for a few beats, then Will closes his eyes again, leans in, and kisses Matt gently on the lips. Matt lets out a surprised whimper then envelops Will in a hug and kisses back sloppily until Will reminds him that they have an escape to pull off.

Internally debating the possibility of delaying their sketchily planned escape by half an hour and taking Will back to his bunk room, but put off by the sudden suspicion that Will is just playing him, Matt leads Will into the changing area and they dress in clean bodysuits. Matt does his best to slick his curly hair back from his face then gestures at Will.

“You’ll have to tie that long hair up and hide it under a cap. Don’t want to be stopped because of uniform regulations. I can’t afford another demerit.” The thought makes Matt giggle nervously. “Although it won’t matter soon I hope.”

Will twists his hair up and holds it in place, then rams a cap on top to prevent his hair from tumbling back down to his shoulders again. As soon as Matt sees him stand taller with his fiery red hair neat and confined, another part of his nebulous scheme solidifies.

“You know,” Matt says, looking thoughtful, “most of the personnel in the hangar I have to report to for maintenance will probably only have seen the general from a distance. I bet if you wore an officer’s uniform and got a haircut and used some concealer you’d pass as your brother. Then you could order a shuttle to take you wherever you wanted to go. I could pilot it. I failed my test on a technicality, but I know the basics.

Will raises his eyebrows at that. “What technicality?” 

Matt sucks his lip and looks away. “I told the officer in charge she was on the wrong approach vector to the hangar on the way back. She deleted my licence right there in front of me. Even though I was right.”

Will’s lips twitch upwards for a fraction of a second and Matt wants to kiss him again.

Will sits still while Matt uses a set of hair clippers to give him a regulation haircut: off the collar at the back and scraped away from his face with oil until it sits like a shiny skullcap on his head. Next, Will pulls the control panel off the uniform dispenser and switches a few wires around before replacing it, pressing a button and waiting while the rail inside rotates and a mechanical arm plucks a grey uniform from the selection and drops it into the hatch for Will to collect. Will wriggles when Matt applies thick coverup cream to his tattoo, and then squirms when Matt smears a thinner layer over his eyelids to tone down the irritated red skin. When he’s done, he tells Will to stand up straight. Matt is unnerved by how uncannily Will resembles his brother. He looks Will up and down, pausing to stare at Will’s feet. 

With a heavy sigh, Matt says, “I can make you fake rank stripes with electrical tape but I can’t fix that. Can you slice the requisitions system for a pair of boots?”

After a hurried discussion with Will, and very late for his repair job, Matt walks into hangar eight and accepts a yelling from the colonel in charge with what he hopes is proper deference. He’s directed to a shuttle that has its ramp down and all its systems powered up, and a blinking red light below the panel that ought to show the radar readouts. 

First, Matt double checks that the code book on the shuttle’s datapad is current and that there is enough fuel for at least a couple of jumps. There is plenty, and he breathes a sigh of relief. The job is a two minute fix but he takes his time inside, looking busy, on his back peering up under the access hatch of a console while listening out for Will. 

Doubts flare and subside. What if Will has been recaptured already? What if Will makes a deal and turns him in for planned defection? That would see him at the wrong end of an executioner trooper’s blaster, or maybe a plasma axe if the general was feeling nasty. What if Will arrives, only to point him out and say, “There’s your traitor! Get him!” 

Or maybe, he thinks with a guilty pang mixed with regret, Will has been caught and shot and has said nothing, in which case he can accept his demerit for lateness and get on with his unsatisfactory life. 

“That will do, colonel.”

Matt jerks and bangs his head and curses. The last thing he needs is a hangar inspection from General Hux himself! He slides out, closes the hatch, dusts down his jumpsuit and makes for the ramp to stand to attention with the rest of the crew. The clipped voice sounds again as he descends the ramp.

“You there!” Matt feels his innards twist as he glances into a pale, sneering face. “Are your repairs in order?”

“Yes, sir!” Matt replies with a salute that he knows is off. He knows he should keep his eyes forward, focused on thin air a few metres away, but he can’t help looking at the general. What he sees makes his heart soar, and a giggle bubbles and threatens to burst from his throat. The eyes that flick over his with barely a trace of emotion are the bluest he has ever seen.

“Well then,” Will says. “I intend to inspect your work. Take this shuttle out and show me the radar system in operation.”

Matt hesitates. He looks at the colonel hovering a few feet behind Will but she shrugs and flaps a hand in dismissal. Unseen by anyone else, Will gives him a tiny, conspiratorial smile.

“Is there a problem, Technician? You _can_ pilot this craft, can’t you?”

“No sir!” Matt snaps out. “I mean yes, sir! No problem!”

Matt stands aside and Will Hux marches up the ramp and into the shuttlecraft as if he owns it. The colonel tries to follow but Will halts her halfway up the ramp with a glare and a gesture.

“Attend to your duties, colonel,” he snaps. “You will personally release the docking clamp and deactivate the force-field so that I may see for myself whether this technician’s work meets the First Order’s exacting standards and make an example of him if it does not.”

“Yes, sir,” the colonel says, saluting smartly and marching to the control room. Matt’s sure he sees the trace of a smirk on her face, as if she thinks he’s about to be _made an example of_ when she watches as he raises the ramp and seals the doors.

“Right then,” Will says, voice still very much in character despite the grin spreading over his face. “Take us out, man.”

It takes a minute for the pilot’s seat to feel familiar again and Matt’s hands tremble a little at the controls. Will rests one hand on Matt’s shoulder and Matt swallows his fears for now. The shuttle lifts a little higher than permitted and an alarm blares, then it wobbles as Matt corrects for his mistake and eases the small craft forwards and out through the blast doors and force field that keeps the warm atmosphere of the Finalizer inside and the cold, dark vacuum of space outside. Will’s hand tightens on Matt’s shoulder as he pilots further from the huge ship.

“We better use the radar. They’ll know if we don’t,” Matt murmurs.

Will’s hand lifts and Matt hears the familiar beeps and pings of the radar assembly coming online. He taps a button and a hazy, blue three dimensional image of their surroundings rises, twirls and settles, floating in front of the copilot seat. Will slips into the seat and turns his head to smile at Matt.

“Very good, man,” he says in Hux’s crisp accent. “What’s your name and rank?”

“Matt, sir,” Matt replies, playing along for the eavesdroppers in hangar eight. “Technician, second class.”

“Well, technician-second-class-Matt. Take us on a tour of my flagship. I do like to admire its clean lines from outside.”

“Yes, sir.” Matt begins a casual perimeter of the Finalizer. Will slips out of his seat, fetches Matt’s hexdriver set and opens up the comms console. After a minute or two of rummaging and swapping connections around, he laughs and slouches into the copilot’s chair.

“They can’t hear us over the static now,” he says in his normal voice, poring over the navigation computer console. “I disabled the tracker and corrupted their channel. I’ll set the nav. We’ll be three systems away before they realise we’re not coming back.”

Matt nods, sucking his lips and feeling a strange, warm sensation in his chest.

“Get ready,” Will says. Matt grasps the hyperspace control levers. “Three... Two... One... Punch it!”

Matt holds his breath as stars streak into blue-white lines. He’s mesmerised by it. The computer takes over, bringing them out of hyperspace and changing course and launching them forward faster than light gain. Just as Matt is getting used to the eerie vanishing point in front of them, it happens again. 

“Where are we going?” he asks. 

“Not sure yet,” Will says. “When we get somewhere that isn’t allied with or subjugated by the First Order we’ll stop, strip the identification markers from the shuttle and refuel.” 

Will unfastens his belt and loosens his collar. Matt watches since he has nothing better to do. “Ryloth’s neutral. Akiva’s quiet,” he says, chewing at his nails. “No. Hoth’s in range. Akiva was under threat from the First Order when I was captured so it’s too risky. Ryloth might send us back. Nobody in their right mind would go to Hoth but there’s an old rebel base there that might be a good place to lay low.”

Matt‘s agog at Will’s casual knowledge of planets. “I’ve never been to any of those places. I’ve never really been anywhere.”

Will gives him a surprised sideways look. “You live on a starship. You’ve been to hundreds of planets.”

“Ha! I’ve been in orbit _around_ hundreds of planets. I have only actually _seen_ one.”

Will’s face softens. “I suppose they all look the same from inside that monster.”

“I can’t wait to see this ‘Hoth’,” Matt says. “I bet it’s great.”

Will’s face goes pink, his eyebrows rise and his lips suck inwards. “I hope you like snow,” he says after a minute. 

After Will finishes tinkering with the nav, there’s nothing left to do but monitor what remains of the comm system and let the nav computer take them on Will’s programmed flight path. If all goes well Matt estimates they have ten standard hours to kill on a shuttlecraft designed for function over comfort. There is no galley, just a container stacked with ration bars and water pouches. 

There is no bunk room but there are two parallel benches running along the sides of the passenger area. Thankfully, there is a cramped ‘fresher with minimal but functioning facilities. Matt brings out water and rations.

“I brought you these,” he says, holding out his hands. Will takes a ration bar and devours it, following it with the water. Matt offers him another and he takes it too, biting and chewing more slowly. “Guess they didn’t feed you in that interrogation room.” 

Will covers his mouth and shakes his head. Matt notices Will’s skin-tone concealer is wearing off and he can see specks of blue above his eyebrow. 

“The rebels do that to you? I heard they’re undisciplined. Savages.” He points. Will shakes his head again and swallows.

“No. They saved me from the people who did this. After Cardinal dumped me on some backwater desert planet, I was kidnapped and sold. I worked tech support for the Ma-Ma clan on Tattooine. Hutts. You heard of them?”

Matt shakes his head.

“Good. I hate them.” Will rubs at his eyelids and more concealer comes off. Matt can see the redness of his irritated skin again. “Your turn to tell me something now,” Will says. “Why did you help me?”

Matt gets up to find the medpack. “I don’t really know how to explain,” he says, finding the bacta spray. “I don’t know anything except the First Order and they don’t like me much. The other techs. Maybe I just wanted a change. Here, put this on your eyes. It’ll sting but it’ll help.”

Will takes the bacta spray, closes his eyes and mists the healing liquid over them. A second later he curses loudly, drops the bacta and clenches his fists, then gradually relaxes as the burning pain subsides. He blinks a few times and looks up at Matt, standing over him with a concerned look on his face. 

“Thanks,” Will says, picking up the bacta spray and offering it back to Matt. Matt takes it and replaces it in the medpack.

“You seem like a decent enough guy,” Will says when Matt returns to sit opposite him on the other bench. “Why do you say the others don’t like you?”

“Because they don’t,” Matt says with a shrug. “Mostly they try to hide it but I can tell. I say things wrong. Like, if I see something like a job not up to standard, I say so. They don’t like it.” He feigns a clipped, officer’s accent. “Another demerit for insubordination! You must learn to be tactful and respectful, technician, or you will never advance. Now see to that blockage in sanitation.”

Will smiles and shakes his head. “I like that you say what you think.”

“I like you,” Matt blurts out, and Will laughs. Matt scowls. “See! You don’t like that I said that. You’re laughing at me.”

“I’m not, I promise,” Will says. “I kissed you, didn’t I?”

“You were just saying thank you,” Matt says. “Or maybe you felt that I got hard when we were kissing in the shower and you wanted me to keep helping you so you let me think you like me. Or maybe someone dared you to do it.”

Will moves to sit beside Matt and takes his hand. “I was saying thank you,” he says. “And I do want you to keep helping me,” he adds, massaging Matt’s large paw with his long, slender fingers. “And I do like you. You helped me and you didn’t ask for anything in return. You can kiss me again if you like.”

Matt studies his hand, fingers laced with Will’s, but doesn’t reply.

“I like you, Matt,” Will says. “And I want you to kiss me.”

Matt brings his free hand up to stroke Will’s jaw and gently brushes his lips across Will’s. Will parts his lips and Matt’s spine tingles as he feels Will’s tongue slip past his lower lip. Then Will pulls back. Matt is about to give in to the burn of disappointment and shame when Will pivots and lands in Matt’s lap, one knee on the bench either side of Matt’s hips, bringing them nose to nose.

“This is better,” Will says, leaning in and kissing Matt, both hands sliding through Matt’s tousled curls. “Now what are we going to do for ten hours?”

“I can think of something,” Matt replies. “There might be some recreational holovids on the shuttle’s memory banks for longer trips.”

Will bursts out laughing and Matt frowns at him in confusion. “Matt, I definitely felt your cock getting hard in the shower and under safer circumstances I would have asked you to fuck me against the shower wall. So if that cock was hard for me, get it out. I want it.”

“You do?” Matt asks, and Will nods.

With some cursing and giggling, Matt wriggles out of his overall and bodysuit without completely dislodging Will, except he forgets about his boots and ends up with both garments tangled around his calves.

“Magnificent,” Will says, stroking Matt’s springy, curled hair and watching his cock fill out, and the compliment makes Matt’s groin tingle all the more. 

Matt watches Will’s face take on a slight frown of its own. “When you said they don’t like you, does that mean you never had sex?” Matt’s face reddens and he looks away. 

Will cups his cheek. “It’s okay. I just need to know, that’s all.”

“I get off to porn on the holonet,” Matt says. “So I know stuff.”

Will considers this for a few seconds. “All right,” he says. “Is there anything you watched that you want now?”

Matt shakes his head and looks into Will’s too-blue eyes. “I want you,” he says quietly. “You’re real.”

Will unfastens his stolen tunic and pulls it off then shimmies out of the top half of his bodysuit. He takes Matt’s hands and places them on his chest then leans in and kisses him, trailing his fingertips across Matt’s muscular shoulders and arms, making Matt shiver and giggle. Next, Will slides his hands down over Matt’s stomach but stops before he reaches Matt’s cock. Matt groans and Will grins.

“What’s the hurry? We’ve got hours.”

“I want you,” Matt repeats. 

“I know,” Will says. “But you have not told me what you want me to do. Or what you want to do to me.”

Matt goes even redder and his cock starts softening. “It doesn’t matter,” he says. “I can’t—”

“No, wait!” Will strokes Matt’s hair and kisses his face several times. “I’m sorry. You’re shy. I just didn’t expect that since you were okay with walking around nude in the sanisteam.”

“I do that every day,” Matt says.

After chewing his lip for a moment, Will makes a suggestion. “I’m not used to being naked. It makes me nervous. You could start by telling me you want me to take my clothes off. If you like.”

“I can do that,” Matt says. “I want you to take your clothes off. I won’t laugh or anything because I think you’re really hot and I want to look at you.”

Will slips off Matt’s lap and onto his feet. He struggles with his boots, throwing them across the passenger area to hit the wall with one loud clang then another once he has wrestled them off his feet. He steps out of the breeches and peels off his bodysuit, then stands as if for inspection. Matt removes his boots too and shakes his legs free of his clothing.

“You’re beautiful,” Matt says. “Can I just look at you?”

“You don’t mind these?” Will asks, pointing to the constellation of scars on his chest and stomach.

“No, but I wish whoever did that to you was dead,” Matt says.

Will’s face goes serious. “Oh, she is,” he murmurs, then brightens up again. “What next?” 

“Uh, sit on my lap?” 

Will takes the two steps over to Matt and settles in the same position as before. 

“Can I touch you?” Matt asks, hand halfway to Will’s cock.

“Please,” Will replies, smiling. “Can I kiss you and touch you while you do that?”

“Please,” Matt says, smiling.

Matt is just thinking that the kissing is the best part, each little swipe of Will’s tongue and each gentle tease of teeth on his lip sending shivers through his core, when Will’s hands move from kneading his shoulders and rub across his nipples instead. He’s not really all that sensitive there, but combined with the weight of Will’s cock clasped gently in his hand and the anticipation of whatever might happen next, it sends a new frisson to Matt’s cock. Will pauses the kiss to ask Matt if he likes it and Matt nods before surging forward to recapture Will’s lips. When Will moves his hands lower to cup Matt’s balls and stroke his cock, Matt can’t help letting out a moan. 

Will laughs. “You like that too?”

“Stars, yes,” Matt says. “More?” 

Will grips a little more firmly and moves his hands faster. Matt’s on the point of garbling out a warning when he comes so hard his head spins. “Sorry,” he says after a few seconds when he regains the power of speech.

“What for?”

“I came real fast.” Will smiles and nibbles the shell of Matt’s ear, making Matt laugh and duck. 

“You didn’t come yet. Can I...” Matt blushes deeper. 

“Go on?”

“Can I suck you off? I saw it in a holo one time and—”

“Kriff! Yes.”

Will pivots and sits on the bench, slouching back against the wall with his tunic for padding against the cold, plastoid panel. Matt kneels on his overalls between Will’s thighs and hunkers down. It should be easy, he tells himself. But the holovids were poor quality and the reality of having a cock right in front of his face is different. He looks up to see those blue eyes watching him.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” Will says. “You could watch me— Oooh!”

The last sound from Will is in response to Matt opening his mouth and taking Will’s entire cock into its soft warmth.

“Sith, Matt, you’re perfect for this.”

Matt would smile but his lips are too busy around Will’s cock and he’d say _thank you_ except his tongue is too busy undulating and swirling and making Will cry out with pleasure. Just as Matt’s jaw is beginning to ache and threaten cramp, he tastes salt and Will grabs a handful of Matt’s hair to pull him off. Matt focuses on Will’s cock, twitching and spurting on his pale, scarred and puckered skin. When Will relaxes his grip with a soft apology and receives a kiss of forgiveness, Matt asks if he did it right. Will holds him tightly and tells him again that he’s perfect.

They do watch a holovid eventually, after putting their bodysuits back on, eating more ration bars, checking their course and listening to the few random subspace comms that have passed through them while they cruised steadily towards Hoth and, hopefully, safety. Matt helps Will get as much of the oil out of his hair as possible using sterile wipes intended for minor cuts and they lounge together on one of the benches, watching some holodrama play out in midair until Matt realises that Will is asleep, head on his shoulder, arm looped around his waist. Matt closes the holoplayer, closes his eyes and is soon asleep too.

They are blasted into wakefulness by a blaring alarm from the nav computer. Will’s up to see what their position is in a second, and Matt launches himself into the pilot’s seat.

“It’s okay,” Will calls out. “We’re entering normal space. We’re here.”

“Okay,” Matt replies as the vanishing point rapidly expands from a dot into an ever widening black circle that fills his field of view and the blue streaks snap back into the points of distant stars. The shuttle’s autopilot takes them into orbit, and Matt gasps at the shimmering white planet below.

“It’s beautiful!” he says, voice hushed.

Will laughs. “From here, I suppose it is. I’ll use the comm to look for any trace of technology. You might be able to resolve surface structures with the radar. Look for anything that might be a generator.”

They have barely started their search of the frozen surface when the comm beeps and a voice crackles through the cabin.

“Unknown shuttle, please identify.”

“Transmitting identification now,” Will replies, face breaking into a grin as he taps out a string of characters on the comms panel. “I didn’t expect a welcome.”

“Will!” Matt can hear the excitement in the other voice. “It’s Will! We thought we’d lost you all, Techie. Welcome home.”

“How come you’re on Hoth?” Will asks. “I thought this place would be the last resort.”

There’s a moment of quiet from the other end and Matt breathes out a quiet “Ah-hah!” as he spots a mid-sized field generator poking up through the frozen crust. The ground-penetrating radar shows the scattered remains of AT-AT walkers nearby and he thinks he recognises a few X-Wings and TIE-fighters in the wreckage. Will is listening to the person on the ground with a grim face.

“Well,” he says. “I brought you some good news. I have a First Order defector with me and he knows their systems inside out. And if there’s one radar technician willing to rebel, you can bet there will be more.”

“Good work, Will,” the voice says with tired warmth. “We’ll light up a beacon for you. Follow it home.”

Will closes the comm channel and points. There’s a speck of light visible a few clicks from the generator and Matt adjusts the angle of descent to aim the auto landing system at it.

“We’re getting a warmer welcome here than I expected,” Will says, “but it means the rebellion is down to the last few fighters and the last safe base. When we land you’ll see why. Hoth is a difficult place.” He brightens and punches Matt on the shoulder. “Let’s get as many clothes on as possible,” he says. “I can’t introduce you to Commander Tico in your underwear.”


	2. And there was only one bunkroom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s tiny bit of angst at separation at the end of this chapter, but I promise it will be resolved near the start of chapter 3.

Matt can’t stop shivering and his teeth chatter. He didn’t think it was possible to be so cold. For the last decade or more he has experienced only the small, carefully regulated, fluctuations in temperature inside a starship. So the brutal chill of an icebound planet is a shock he is entirely unprepared for. 

“Sith!” he curses. “I bet space is warmer than this.”

Will laughs beside him, muffled by layers and layers of fabric. “Space is colder, but you’d freeze faster here. The vacuum of space insulates so your body heat radiates away slowly. If you had air it would probably take you a while to die form the cold. But if you were out there in the wind you’d be dead in a couple of minutes.”

Matt feels his feet tingling, on the point of going numb, so he stamps to try to get some feeling back. A small figure, rotund from padded layers of thermal clothing, walks up closer. The looks she gives Matt chills him even more.

But what he can see of her face breaks into a smile. “Will,” she says. “Glad you made it back. I want to hear about everything that happened on your mission.”

“And you will, Rose. I mean Commander Tico. But can we get warm first?” Will says.

Commander Tico nods. “Sure. We’re having a little trouble with one of the generators so there isn’t much heat to go around.”

“I’m a technician,” Matt says abruptly, following close behind Commander Tico. “Maybe I can fix it.”

Commander Tico stops so suddenly Matt almost barges into her. She turns. “Thank you,” she says, “but we have a team on it already. This way.” And she sets off again with surprisingly fast steps for someone of her height.

“Don’t worry,” Will says, offering Matt a smile. “She’ll warm up to you when she sees you’re not a First Order spy or a slicer.”

They are led to a small room that has a two tier bunk with blankets, a tiny ‘fresher cabinet and a small desk. It is a few degrees warmer than the chamber just inside the storm doors where Commander Tico welcomed them, and Matt rubs his arms until he stops shivering.

“You’ll sleep here,” Tico says. “I’ll have someone bring you better clothing. Will? A word?”

Will follows Tico out and the door closes. Matt wraps himself in one of the blankets from the lower bunk and walks around to keep his muscles warm. After a few long minutes, when Matt is beginning to regain feeling in his toes, Will returns, smiling.

“I persuaded Rose to assign us to work together,” Will says. “A two person tech team. I vouched for you so we can go most places on the base as long as you don’t wander off. Not the command centre or anything sensitive though. Our first job is to brief Rose on what we know of the First Order. She’s already got a tech team slicing the shuttle’s systems for its codes and flight log.”

“She hates me,” Matt says, forlornly, half muffled by his blanket. “I saw that look in her eyes when I said I can fix stuff. Same look my boss gave me yesterday when I said I wasn’t a droid tech.”

“And I’m glad your boss ignored you,” Will replies, coming closer and peering into Matt’s eyes then cupping his cheek and kissing him once, gently. “I’d be dead and you’d be seeing that look again from your work mates if we hadn’t got each other out of there. And Kylo Ren would have found out whatever he wanted from me.”

“I bet he wouldn’t have,” Matt says. “I bet you could hold him off.”

Will’s smile turns sad. “No,” he says. “Nobody can. Except Rey.”

“Who’s Rey?” Matt asks, but Will doesn’t answer even when he repeats the question. After a few more uncomfortable seconds, someone knocks on the door and delivers a pile of thermal clothing.

“Great!” Will says cheerfully. “Let’s get ready and go see what Rose wants to know.”

They change quickly out of their inadequate clothing then walk trough the base, snug in their thermal suits, hats and padded boots. Matt wonders at the blue-white walls of solid ice and the white compacted snow underfoot. There are black electrical and optical cables slung along at head height, secured every few paces by hooks driven into the ice and, above them, mounted lights suffuse the passageways with a twinkling glow that throws a ghostly, shifting penumbra around them as they walk. 

They are directed into a large room hollowed out of the ice like all the others. There’s a table with a few stools around it and the remains of someone’s meal in a bowl by one of the seats. Commander Tico is there with a humanoid figure unlike any Matt has seen before. He tries not to stare as both Tico and the alien fill bowls from an urn and sit at the table.

Rose Tico drums her fingers and frowns. “There’s tauntaun stew. It’s still warm. Make the most of it.”

Will steers Matt to the urn and serves up two bowls. They sit opposite Tico and her friend. Matt looks at his meal and takes a tentative spoonful. He finishes the rest in under a minute then looks up to see Tico suppressing a laugh.

“Doesn’t the First Order feed its soldiers?” she asks. “I thought you all got perfectly balanced nutrient paste three times a day.”

“I’m not a soldier,” Matt replies. “So I get standard ration bars. I never asked what’s in them.”

“Probably wise, from what I’ve heard,” Tico says. “Tell me about yourself, Matt. Will says you’re a First Order radar technician and you want to join the resistance.”

“I am a radar technician,” Matt says, frowning at Will. “But I never said I wanted to join the resistance. I just wanted to get away from the Finalizer because they all hate me and I didn’t like what they were doing to Will. It was wrong.”

“Oh.” Commander Tico’s frown returns. “Well, you’ll have to stay here until we can decide what to do with you. Until then, you’ll work.” Her frown shifts to Will. “Closely supervised.” 

Will nods and Commander Tico seems satisfied. She looks a little more kindly on Matt and asks, “So what can you tell us about the First Order?”

Matt launches into a detailed description of his training and his daily routine until he runs out of details to add. Tico looks at him with an exasperated expression he recognises from having seen it often on the faces of his peers, and it makes him squirm in his seat.

“Is there something wrong?” Matt blurts out. “I answered your question.”

Tico smiles. “Yes, you really did,” she says. “Shame you didn’t tell us anything we need to know.”

“Rose?” Matt turns to see Will’s face in profile, frowning a little at his commanding officer. “He’s a techie. He’s probably used to following the same protocol over and over and this is—”

“I get it,” Rose says, frowning back. “Okay. Matt, tell me what you know about the First Order’s computational tracking systems and their communications protocols.”

“I can tell you about the Finalizer and the Supremacy,” Matt says, dully. “I’ve never been anywhere else.”

“Please,” Rose says, leaning in. Matt looks up to see her eager smile, and Will squeezes his leg.

“Well,” Matt says once he collects his thoughts. “I know the Finalizer best so I’ll start with that.”

Over two hours later, Matt feels wrung out. “Did I do okay?” he asks Will. “That... that other... _person_ took a lot of notes. Looked at me like I was dirt.”

“That’s Zennal. She’s from Abednedo,” Will replies. “Didn’t you see any other species before?”

“Of course! In holos, I mean. Just humans mostly,” Matt replies, feeling the heat of shame at his lack of education and probable lack of manners. “Did I stare?”

“A bit,” Will says with a smile. “Mostly at Rose, to be honest.”

“She’s a techie too, isn’t she?” Matt says. “I can tell. From the way she asked for the little details.”

“Yes, she’s is in charge of engineering and supplies,” Will replies. “Her team keeps the resistance moving and eating and comfortable and—”

“Comfortable!” Matt huffs. “Think she’d turn the heat up?”

“And melt the base?” Will grins. “We’ll find another way to stay warm. Let’s go look at that long range radar she wants fixed.”

“I am a radar technician after all,” Matt says with more than a hint of relief. “I bet I can get it working.”

They follow a schematic on an outdated datapad through the warren-like, cold, narrow passageways of the base, Will leading and Matt following, until they reach a frozen control room. There are shards of ice clinging from the roof, stretching down towards pillars that seem to rise from the floor to meet them. In places the icicles join to form columns with smooth sides that taper gracefully from the roof and merge with broad, lumpy bases that squat on the floor. Will weaves his way around the obstacles. Matt gapes at them, illuminating each one with the flashlight on his wrist.

“It’s beautiful!” he says quietly. “I’ve never seen anything like this!”

Will looks back at Matt, trying not to smile at Matt’s gawky expression. “Come on,” he says after a full minute. “Radar needs your attention. I’ll run a diagnostic on the software. You take the hardware. If you need to go up to the dish, there should be an access hatch. Rose said she had everyone clear all the compacted snow out as soon as they got here so we’d be able to make repairs like this when we had the chance.”

Matt looks at Will in the softly refracted beams from his flashlight. Will’s eyes seem to glow blue to match the clearest patches of ice in the walls and a strand of amber hair straggles over his forehead. Matt’s just decided on reaching out to touch it, let the strand glide smooth between his fingers as he tucks it back into place under Will’s hat, when Will shakes his head and pushes the strand out of his way.

“Right,” Matt says. “Yeah. Radar. Fix.”

“Come here first,” Will says, looking down at a panel he has just polished to a smeary kind of clean with his sleeve. Matt steps around one of the ice columns and stands peering down beside Will.

“What?” he asks, seeing his own confused and slightly warped reflection.

“Just this,” Will says, turning to kiss him on the cheek. “That’s all.”

Matt can’t help a smile growing on his face. He pulls off Will’s hat, kisses him on the forehead and runs his fingers through the longer hair on the top of Will’s head then feels the spiky texture of the shorn part at the back. 

Will shivers and giggles. “Hat,” he says. “Radar. Now.”

Will crouches, pulls the front of control panel open and adjusts his own flashlight to illuminate his work space until the panel top lights up. Matt takes a toolkit up a narrow tunnel to the dish in a chamber near the surface. It’s colder here than below the layers of snow and ice and Matt huddles into his warm clothes, fumbling his tools until he gets used to handling them through his mittens. 

He tests the bearings that allow the dish to swivel and track objects in high orbit and repairs a section of cable that looks like it has been eaten through by some creature so desperate to survive that polyplast casing looked tasty. Matt has to take his mittens off to wind insulating tape around the joined cable. His fingers begin to tingle within a minute and he warms them up again under his hat before pulling his mittens back on.

Once he has repaired everything that looks worn or damaged or jammed, Matt tidies up and stands back to admire his work. Maybe, he thinks, Commander Tico will be pleased with his efforts.

“You okay up there?” Will calls from below.

“Yes,” Matt calls out, voice echoing in the large chamber. “Is it working?”

“Powering up now,” Will says. “Stand clear!”

Matt shuffles back against the wall, well out of the way in case the dish moves. There’s a low hum and a series of clicks, then the dish tilts slowly in one plane then the other, then performs a slow circle. Matt laughs.

“Okay that looks good,” he calls down the access tunnel. “Coming back.”

Once he’s back in the control room, Will points to a hazy blue holo showing a few specks above a schematic of the planet surface. “Looks like we got company,” he says.

Matt leans forward, his profile just emerging from his hat and the high collar of his coat. “Who—”

“It’s him!” A voice mutters from the passageway outside. Matt turns but there’s no one there and all he hears is the soft _shuffshuffshuff_ of people moving around in thermal suits like his own. 

“Ignore it,” Will says. “Word got around that there’s a First Order defector in the base. People want a look at you, that’s all.”

Matt tightens his lips. He points at the radar display. “Can Commander Tico see this? Has the First Order found us?”

Will frowns and shakes his head. “I disabled the shuttle’s tracker and, no offence, but you’re just a techie. There’s probably a wanted list with your name on it but they won’t come looking.”

“I impersonated Kylo Ren,” Matt reminds Will. “And you impersonated General Hux. That’s treason.”

Will nods and his frown deepens. The display refreshes and a code appears next to the largest speck. Will sighs in relief.

“It’s Black Squadron.” He smiles at Matt. “Commander Dameron’s team. I’ll patch this feed through to primary command. Oh!” he points at the section of chewed cable still clenched in Mat’s hand. “Can I have that?”

Will leads Matt back to the room where Commander Tico questioned him. There are a few other resistance members there, laughing and helping themselves from a fresh urn of stew and pouring caf from a large flask. Someone looks round as Will enters and waves a happy greeting but the smile dies on their face when they catch sight of Matt. The room is silent.

“Hi,” Will says, voice falsely bright. “Nice to see you all again. This is my friend, Matt. He’s a radar technician.”

“He’s First Order,” someone pipes up. “How do you know he’s not a spy or a slicer here to sabotage the resistance?”

“Will,” Matt says quietly, backing away. “Maybe I should just—”

Will’s hand shoots out and grabs Matt’s sleeve. “No,” he says. “He _was_ First Order. Not any more.”

“You can’t be sure,” someone else says. “He should be in the brig.”

Will snaps. “Do we even have a brig, Sedni?” He waits for a few seconds but nobody speaks. “You weren’t there. Matt saved my life. He got me away from Kylo Ren.”

“Are you sure he is who he says he is?” Sedni counters.

“He just fixed the long range radar dish,” Will retorts, “so I’m pretty sure he’s a radar tech.”

The techie beside Sedni points. “I’ve seen a holo of the supreme leader. He looks like Kylo Ren would if he bleached his hair and slouched.”

“Are you suggesting Kylo Ren himself rescued me from his own interrogation chamber, stole one of his own shuttles and flew to Hoth with me to fix radar?” Will glares at the doubters, stands up straight and puts on the clipped accent he used to impersonate his brother, and enunciates clearly. “I look so much like General Hux that together we fooled an entire hangar’s complement of stormtroopers and officers into letting us fly away in a shuttle. Do you think I’m a spy too?”

Nobody answers. Will slouches again and pulls Matt forward, beside him as he walks closer to the small knot of people around the urn. “Are you going to keep this up until the food gets cold? We’re hungry.”

The small crowd parts as Will gets close enough and someone slops a ladleful of stew into a bowl for him. After a delay just long enough to make a point, the server slops out another helping and hands the bowl to Matt. They sit together at the opposite end of the room from the others.

“You know it’s not you,” Will says quietly. “It’s where you came from that they hate. Everyone here has lost friends and family to the First Order. Some of these people lost entire worlds.”

“I never thought about that,” Matt says. “General Hux tells us every day that the First Order is spreading peace and bringing civilisation to the galaxy. Kylo Ren is—”

There’s a loud bang and a scrape as one of the techies thumps the table with her fists and scrapes her chair back. “You.” She points at Matt. “Shut up. Shut up about the First Order and General Hux and Kylo Ren.”

Matt stares at her, eyebrows raised, as her face twists in fury. “My family,” she says, louder, “were farmers on Akiva. Now they’re gone. The First Order rounded them up, herded them into a transport and took them away. All because my mother said to a neighbour that maybe the rebels had a point.”

There’s a sharp pain in Matt’s wrist as soon as he opens his mouth to reply. When he glances down, Will has a tight grip and his fingernails are digging in. Matt looks at Will, ready to protest but Will just shakes his head slowly.

“She has a point, Matt,” Will says quietly. “Eat up and don’t talk about it here.”

“But why would OWWW!” Will’s grip tightens even more and Matt shakes his arm free, rubbing at the little red crescents where Will’s fingernails have almost broken the skin. “Kriff, Will, that hurt.”

“Matt,” Will says, voice steady and calm. “You remember how you found me. You know what Kylo Ren was going to do.” Matt nods. “And you decided that was wrong. You told Rose your story already.” Matt nods again. “Well, everyone here has a story. Maybe instead of talking about the First Order, you ought to listen.”

The technician who got up to shout at Matt sits down again. She stares at Matt for a few seconds then pulls out the vacant chair beside her and pats it. “Sit here,” she growls. “And learn.”

Matt listens as, one by one, each rebel tells their story. Some leave once they’ve spoken and a few others drift into the group to add their voices. One refuses to speak at all and leaves with a friend at their back.

There’s the man whose brother was dragged from his cantina and murdered in the town market, “executed” for the “treason” of refusing to serve a First Order officer.

There’s a woman whose home planet was stripped of resources by the First Order after their government agreed to an alliance to avoid a war they would lose.

There’s someone who used to work in a shipyard but was off sick the day their entire engineering team was sent to a work camp for protesting a sudden cut in pay and increase in workload under new, First Order, ownership.

And there are people who simply saw or heard about what was happening and decided to do whatever they could to stop the First Order.

There are so many stories that by the end of the next hour his head is reeling. Back in their little bunk room, Matt tries to rationalise all that he has heard. Will listens patiently, stripping the polyplast casing from cable he claimed from Matt with his fingernails and twisting the copper wire inside between his fingers.

“Maybe these people were just unlucky,” Matt suggests. “In the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Maybe they don’t remember right,” he says, hands rubbing his face. “Or maybe they exaggerated.”

He paces the tiny space—five steps, turn, five steps, turn—and shakes his head. “Maybe... Maybe... Maybe it’s just like that on some planets where Kylo Ren and General Hux put the wrong people in charge. Maybe if Kylo Ren _knew_ what was going on he’d...”

Matt sits heavily on a bunk. “The First Order isn’t _evil_ is it? It can’t be.”

Will blinks at him wordlessly, fingers still busy with the copper wire. 

“I mean, they _do_ bring order to the galaxy, don’t they?”

Will puts the wire down carefully on the desk. Matt examines it, bending to get his eyes level with it. “An animal?” he says, admiring the way it balances perfectly on its hind legs. “What kind? I never saw one like that.”

“We’ve been eating one,” Will says. “It’s a tauntaun. Let’s get some sleep. If Poe Dameron’s back he’ll want more information out of you tomorrow.”

Matt undresses as far as he dares in the chilly atmosphere—leaving on the thermal leggings and long sleeved undershirt—and slides into the lower bunk. He lies on his back, staring up at the mesh that supports the mattress above him, reaching up to brush his fingers across the bulge that shows where Will rests. He’s convinced he won’t get any sleep at all.

Next thing he knows, he’s wide awake, shaking and confused. Will’s blue eyes are looking at him with concern and there’s a solid weight pushing his body onto the bed. He realises after a few seconds that Will is lying on top of the covers, on top of him.

“You’re okay, Matt, you’re okay,” Will is chanting quietly, over and over.

Matt wrestles his arms free and rubs his face. His forehead feels clammy and he wipes his palms on the blanket. “Sorry,” he says. “Did I wake you?”

Will’s face crinkles into a laugh. “Wake me?” he says. “You yelled so loud you might’ve set off a karking avalanche.”

“No that would only happen if... Oh.” Matt smiles. “You’re teasing me.”

“Bad dream or bad tauntaun?” Will asks. “If you’re used to surviving on ration bars I guess the resistance’s waste not want not policy might disagree with your stomach.”

“Dream, I think,” Matt replies. “I don’t remember it but Ky— those people I’m not allowed to talk about were in it.”

“Move over,” Will says, rolling off. Matt shifts onto his side and Will slips into the bunk beside him. “It has been an intense couple of days,” Will says, stroking Matt’s hair. 

“I think I have seen more of life since meeting you than in the rest of my entire existence,” Matt says quietly, just as Will seems to be drifting off. “I feel like I’ve been pulled inside out.”

“Huh,” Will says. “That’ll be the tauntaun. Go to sleep.”

Matt smiles at that because he’s too exhausted to laugh, and carefully manoeuvres onto his back, well aware of the inadequate width of the mattress. Will snuggles up to him, head on his shoulder and leg hooked around his knees, and is soon asleep. Matt waits a moment then presses a kiss to Will’s hair.

When Matt wakes again he’s on his side with Will’s chest warming his back and Will’s knees tucked up into the space behind his thighs. He moves and Will grumbles something unintelligible, peels himself away from Matt, slips out of bed and goes into the ‘fresher. Matt takes the opportunity to stretch and roll onto his back. Will gets back into bed, sliding a chilled hand across Matt’s chest, prompting Matt to take a sharp breath in at the cold.

“Sorry,” Will says. “Did I wake you?”

“No,” Matt replies. “I was nearly awake anyway.”

Matt clambers over Will to get up to use the ‘fresher too, prancing across the room to minimise the contact between his socks and the cold floor. When he comes back to bed, he clasps his hands under his arms to warm them before touching Will.

“Mmm.” Will rolls forward until he is lying up against Matt. He kisses Matt on the cheek and Matt wonders whether Will is aware that he can feel his half-hard cock through his underwear. With an enticing tingle at the thought of what they might do if Will wants it, his own cock starts to harden too. He thinks of the words used in the illicit holoporn he used to watch. _Fuck me_ seems too crude, and all the other things he heard the actors say seem too harsh for the way he feels about the man lying with his semi unashamedly pressed against him now.

“Will?” Matt says after a minute of decision making and lip chewing. “Do you want to make love?”

He fears for a minute that he’s reading the situation wrong and Will will laugh derisively, get up and go back to his own bunk. And when Will does laugh, Matt closes his eyes against the hot prickle under his eyelids. But when Will moves, it’s to lie on top of Matt, full length.

“Yes,” Will says, grinning. “I want to... make love.”

Relief surges through Matt like a cool breeze. “I like it when you lie on me,” he says. “I can feel your cock.”

“And I can feel yours too,” Will says, grinding against Matt’s hips until Matt lets out a happy little sigh.

Matt strokes his fingers through Will’s hair. “You’re beautiful,” he says. “I’m sorry I had to cut your hair.”

Will brings both hands up to stroke Matt’s face, then traces his features with a fingertip. Matt closes his eyes and relaxes, enjoying the sensation of Will gently stroking his eyebrows, trailing a finger down the bridge of his nose, then tracing the outline of his lips. His own hands rub slow circles on Will’s back, moving lower with each pass until he’s massaging Will’s ass.

He feels the warmth of Will’s lips on his and parts his lips for the kiss. It’s slow and tentative as if what they did on the journey to this magical, frozen refuge belonged to a different couple in a different universe. Matt feels Will’s fingers in his hair, holding him still, and Will’s weight shifts a little to bring him higher up Matt’s body. Matt rucks up the back of Will’s undershirt and feels for the waistband of his thermal leggings, sliding a hand under the elastic and stroking Will’s soft skin. 

He can feel Will’s smile against his lips, and Will pulls back far enough for Matt’s eyes to focus on the blue cybernetic irises. He watches them turn and imagines he can hear them whirr and click as Will gazes at him.

“Your eyes are fascinating,” Matt says, and Will blinks slowly.  
“Yours are kind,” Will says. “I like looking at them. You look... you look as if you don’t know how strong you are. I feel safe around you.”

Matt looks away, embarrassed at the unusual praise. “My nose is too big and my ears stick out,” he says. “I’m awkward.”

Will drops a light kiss on the end of Matt’s nose, then traces the shell of Matt’s ear. “I like them,” he says. “They’re you.” Then he leans down and gently bites Matt’s earlobe. Matt feels shivers all the way down his back at the unexpectedly pleasant sensation. 

Will laughs and nibbles up the shell of Matt’s ear, delighting in the giggles and gasps that it elicits.  
“So you really like that, huh?”

He trails fingertips across the gooseflesh on Matt’s shoulders, and Matt squirms and laughs. In retaliation, Matt thrusts both hands down the back of Will’s leggings and grabs his ass, pulling their hips together hard.

“What can I do to make you feel like this too?” Matt asks. 

Will thrusts his hips against Matt’s and Matt can feel that he’s hard now. “You’re doing just fine as it is,” Will replies. “Maybe if we end up somewhere warmer I’ll let you find out for yourself.”

Will sits up, straddling Matt’s hips, and pushes Matt’s undershirt up to play with the few, sparse hairs on his chest and mouth at his hardened nipples. Matt gasps at the cold and pulls Will, and the blankets, back on top. His shirt is still rucked up so he pulls at Will’s shirt too until they are lying skin on skin, then he hooks his thumbs in the waist of Will’s leggings. Will lifts his hips to let Matt push his underwear down, then he does the same thing for Matt. 

It feels nice, feels right, Matt thinks. Lying in a warm bunk in a rebel base with Will. It’s so far from his old life that the Finalizer seems like a place from a distant memory rather than a place that was his home only two nights ago. Will feels good on top of him, kissing his neck just below his ear, each slow, gentle thrust of their hips giving a teasing frisson that builds and builds until Matt knows what he wants.

“Will,” he murmurs. “I want you inside me.”

“Are you sure, babe?” Will asks, and Matt almost melts at the endearment.

“Yeah. Yes,” he says. “You know what to do, right?”

“Yeah,” Will says. He reaches a hand under the pillows. “I brought the lube to warm up. Just in case.”

Matt laughs then stops abruptly as a concern hits him. He frowns at Will and asks, “Will it hurt? Should we have condoms? I don’t have anything, if you know what I mean, but you don’t _know_ that and the holos about diseases they made us all watch were horrible and you might—”

“Hush, yes, it’s fine. I’ll take care of you. I promise.”

Matt rolls onto his side when Will tells him to. Will lies close behind, erect cock pressed against Matt’s backside. The warm skin contact is gone for a few seconds as Will rolls onto his back and Matt hears a soft grunt, then Will is pressed against him again. 

A slick, cold finger rubs over Matt’s pucker and he huffs at the shock. Will laughs and kisses the back of his shoulder. The cold, slick feeling remains when Will moves his hand away, then Will massages even more lube around Matt’s hole, slipping the tip of his finger just inside the tight ring of muscle and easing it in and out a few times. Then he pushes in deeper. 

Matt gasps at the sudden, warm tingle of pleasure that spreads through his groin.  
“You ever do this to yourself?” Will asks.  
“No,” Matt replies. “But _fuck_ if I’d known I would have.”

Will laughs and shifts up higher to reach Matt’s face, turned toward him for a kiss. As they kiss, Matt rolls back further onto Will’s hand and gasps again. Will crooks his finger and this time Matt’s eyes flutter closed and he groans.

“WiIl... feels...” Matt says.  
“Feels good?” Will asks. “Just wait until you come with my cock fucking your ass and my hands pumping your hot, hard cock and playing with your balls. You’re gonna come so hard you’re gonna see stars.” 

“Fuck,” Matt says, cock twitching at the sound of such coarse words in Will’s soft voice. “Fuck me so hard.”

“Okay, babe,” Will replies. “This will stretch. Tell me if you need to stop. Promise?”

Matt nods. Will pushes his shoulder until Matt is lying on his front, cock uncomfortable against the mattress. Will’s gone for a second or two, then he hands Matt the pillow from the top bunk and tells him to get comfortable.

Once settled, Matt feels the cold of more lube dribbling over his hole and something blunt pushes against it. The stretch burns a little but it is bearable, and Will seems to know when to pause to let him get used to it. Soon, Matt feels Will’s weight resting on his back, and Will wriggles to brace his knees into the mattress.

“You okay, baby?” Will asks.  
“Mmm, yes,” Matt replies. “Can I call you pet names too?”  
“Fuck, Matt, you can call me anything you want.”

Will moves slowly at first, shallow thrusts that make Matt feel full but nothing more. He wonders if he’s supposed to be doing something, if his inexperience makes him a bad lover.  
“Am I doing this right?” he murmurs.

“Yes, babe,” Will murmurs back. “Sith, you feel wonderful. Does it hurt?”  
“No,” Matt replies. “Not at all now. It did a bit. At first. I don’t feel anything except you’re _in there._ ”  
Will kisses Matt’s back. “Okay baby, that means I’m the one not doing it right.”

Will shifts his weight a little and thrusts harder. Matt is about to say he’s had enough when a wave of pleasure ripples through his core.  
“Aah! Will, baby—”

Will goes still. “You need me to stop?”  
“More!” Matt angles his hips up. “More. Harder. Faster.”

Will laughs and resumes thrusting. Matt loses himself in the pleasure sparking through his groin and his brain. He feels like he could almost come from this, that he would come if he dared try rutting harder against the pillow under his hips, but then he might lose the sensation of Will’s cock rubbing over his prostate, and he wants that never to end. 

Will is breathing heavily, slamming his hips forward and down, thrusting into Matt hard and fast. Just as Matt thinks this is the best feeling he has ever experienced, Will’s hands pull at his hips. Matt raises himself just enough for Will to slip his hands around to clasp Matt’s cock and cup his tightening balls.

Matt desperately wants to thrust back against Will, set the pace even faster, but he can’t move other than to slide his knees a fraction further apart for stability. The exciting sensation of Will’s cock filling him, sending tingles of pleasure through him with every thrust, and Will’s hands fumbling over his balls and stimulating his cock, condenses his entire existence to this one experience. Pleasure builds and builds and he knows he’s going to come just a fraction of a second before he’s overtaken by it. He cries out ragged, breathy moans as he comes and his vision whites out for a second. 

When he opens his eyes again, face down in bed, Will has pulled out and lies collapsed and boneless over him. He giggles. “You were right, baby,” Matt says. “Stars.”

Breakfast is caf and some kind of dense textured bread, slightly sweet tasting and toasted until it is crunchy. As Will and Matt are finishing their share, two men walk in with Commander Tico and the chatter slowly ebbs away into silence. Both men have a certain swagger to them, Matt thinks, and he almost drops his cup when he recognises the darker skinned one. 

“You’re—” he says, voice too loud, too brash in his shock.

“OWW!” he says, even louder, glaring at Will. “You kicked me. I know who that man is!”

Both men, and Rose, turn to regard Matt. The darker skinned man saunters over. “Hi,” he says. “Guess you must be Matt. You can call me Finn. I got out too. Congratulations on your escape. Did Will here rescue you?”

Matt looks to Will for help, but Will’s face is unreadable. “I rescued Will. Or at least we rescued each other,” Matt says.

Finn nods and looks over at the other man. “That’s Poe Dameron. We rescued each other too.” 

“You were a stormtrooper, FN2187,” Matt says. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” Finn replies. “Anything.”

Matt takes a deep breath, glances at Will, scans the room. Nobody is obviously eavesdropping but he can see people giving them furtive glances. He lowers his voice.

“The things people here told me. About the First Order. Are they true? Is the First Order evil?”

Finn’s face goes deadly serious and he leans closer, lowering his voice too. “Every word of it. All true. I was there when Kylo Ren ordered Phasma to have us open fire on a group of defenceless villagers. Women, men, old folks and children. All because he didn’t want any witnesses left alive to tell anyone what the First Order had done. I refused. Poe saw it all too. He was there. Kylo Ren captured him and tortured him for information. The pain almost killed him.”

Matt swallows, mouth suddenly dry, very aware of Will sitting nearby, and nods. Finn nods back then rejoins Poe and Rose at the caf flask. Matt takes Will’s hand across the table and squeezes it.

They’re still holding hands across the table, fingers interlaced, when Rose comes over to tell Matt to go with her. Will gets up too, but she sends him to see if he can fix a power drain in the secondary shield generator. Matt watches Will leave, exchanging a little shrug and a smile with him as he exits the room. 

Rose—Commander Tico, Matt corrects himself—takes Matt to a control room where Poe Dameron stands looking at a tactical display.

“So,” Poe says with a serious intensity. “Rose said you don’t want to join us.”

“I didn’t. I just want to get away. Find a quiet place to live and fix radar.” Matt says. “But I want to stay with Will. So there’s that.”

“Hmm,” Rose frowns. “Not much call for radar technicians on quiet planets. You did a good job with our radar.”

“Truth is,” Poe adds. “Will says you’re a good man. Rose says the intel you gave her checks out and you’re a good techie. The resistance needs good people.”

Matt’s so taken aback by the praise that he’s speechless. “You...” He turns to Rose. “You said I did a good job?”

“Yes,” she replies. “I double checked it all. I cold barely see the cable join, the dish moves without juddering, and you tidied up after yourself.”

“Think it through,” Poe says. “Finn was a stormtrooper, now he’s proud to call himself _rebel scum through and through._ You could be proud of yourself too.” 

Matt considers Poe’s words for a few seconds. ”I was proud of doing good work on the Finalizer and the Supremacy,” he says. “But nobody ever thanked me for it. Just yelled and gave me the next job from the schedule.”

He turns to Rose. “My good work meant that people got killed according to everyone else here.”

Rose shrugs. “You’re right,” she replies. “But they’ll get over it. You’re not the only person here whose actions got people killed.” She glances at Poe, who nods once and looks away. “Poe Dameron made a decision that resulted in the death of my sister.”

Matt frowns. “But he’s not proud of it, right?” Poe’s shaking his head. “I don’t think I fit here. I like Will and I think he likes me but... everyone else. They’re like my old team. The ones I wanted to get away from. Only worse because they’ve got a proper reason to hate me. I should leave.”

“It won’t stay like that,” Rose says. “You’ve been with us, what, twenty hours? Some of these people are fresh from horrors you can’t imagine. It’ll take time for them to accept you. Stick with it and I promise you’ll have friends for life.”

“If you decide not to stay with us, we’ll drop you somewhere next time we run a mission to a suitable planet, okay?” Poe gives him a tight smile. “We got an opportunity in the next couple of days. Think it over today and tonight. Talk with Will. Sith! Talk with Finn. Anyone.”

Rose escorts Matt back to the room he is beginning to think of as “the cantina”. As he walks in, Finn claps him on the back and walks out. There are about forty people sitting or standing around, some of them looking awkwardly at the walls or the floor.

One approaches Matt and he steels himself for abuse, but she offers her handshake. Matt recognises Zennal, the Abednedo who glared at him all through his first meeting with Commander Tico, and accepts. 

Sedni comes forward next. As they shake hands, she murmurs that if he betrays them she will kill him herself, and he believes her.

Rose comes in with a duty list. Matt’s teamed up with Sedni, who is human, and Vashaal, who informs him brusquely that he’s Togruta when Matt asks about his ‘fancy headdress’. They have a list of minor repairs to attend to, and Matt impresses Vashaal with his encyclopaedic knowledge of a range of communications arrays while Sedni rolls her eyes and tells them to please, _please,_ shut the _sith_ up. 

They finish the job list and Sedni goes to report to Rose. Vashaal takes Matt back to the “cantina” and pours them both some caf.

“Transport going out tomorrow, I heard.” he tells Matt. “Some mission or other to pick up supplies. I was supposed to go as techie but I’ve been replaced. Last minute. You know anything about that?”

Matt raises his eyebrows and shakes his head. “Maybe,” he replies. “I said I wanted to be dropped off on a quiet planet. They said I had to think it over. Talk to Will. Wait for a suitable mission. I’m not cut out for this. I don’t fit.”

Vashaal punches Matt on the arm. “Talk to your boyfriend then. None of us fit, you fool.”

Matt is already tucking into a bowl of something he can’t identify other than “not tauntaun” when Will arrives, pink-cheeked and runny-nosed from the cold. Matt smiles and waves, and is pleased when Will’s face lights up when they make eye contact. Will brings his bowl over.

“Mmm,” he says, chewing. “Not tauntaun. Nice.”

Matt smiles at him. “Vashaal called you my boyfriend. Are you?”

He waits for Will to stop coughing. Red faced and runny eyed, Will blinks at him. “Do you want me to be?”

“Yes,” Matt says. “If I decide to leave, will you come with me?”

“No,” Will says, picking up both their bowls. “I owe these people. So do you, only you just don’t see it yet.”

Matt follows Will back to their bunk room, his arguments in favour of leaving being met with silence more frigid than the outside air. When they close the door to the small, private space, Will goes straight into the ‘fresher and then gets into the upper bunk without saying a single word to Matt.

Matt gets into the lower bunk and doesn’t sleep a wink.

They’re woken early, although the lack of natural light in the ice warren makes it impossible to get any sense of time. Matt staggers to the door to see who is hammering on it, but as soon as he opens it, someone yells, “Blizzard incoming! Launch in ten!” and moves to the next door. 

Will drops down from his bunk. “Get dressed,” he says. “We need to be quick.”

Matt doesn’t question Will. It feels comforting to be following orders, and he trots down the passageway after Will without much thought. They emerge into the hangar where they landed. Mat takes a moment to gawp at the transformation: the First Order shuttle now looks like a beat-up junker with a patchwork paint job and oversized ion exhaust ports. At the far end, an X-Wing is just nosing out and there’s a cheer when its engines roar into life.

Someone yells at him to move and he runs up the ramp. It raises behind him and the hatch seals. Only when they are rattling through the turbulent atmosphere does he realise that Will is not on board.

“Hey,” he says to the only other person on board who is not actively involved in flying the shuttle. “Where are we going? Where’s Will?”

“He’s not on this mission. Don’t worry, techie,” the man says. “This is a supply run. We’re picking up fuel and food and spare parts, a gift from some locals on a backwater planet that the First Order hasn’t paid much attention to yet. There shouldn’t be any action.”

Matt looks at the man’s face. Grim, he thinks. He supposes that if he were going on a mission he thought was dangerous he might try to reassure himself too. 

“So we land, load and leave?” Matt says, using a phrase he’d overheard in one of the hangars on the Finalizer. “Be back before dark?”

The man frowns at him and shakes his head once. “We land and load, then _we_ leave,” he says, indicating the pilot, co-pilot and himself. “I heard you were being left behind.”

Matt leans back against the hard plastoid of the wall panel and blinks back hot tears. He’s been a fool, he thinks. He should never have asked Will to leave with him like that, so abruptly, without talking to him enough, persuading him properly that it was the right thing to do.

No, he corrects himself. He should not have left without asking Will, and then listening to his reasons for wanting to stay. And now he’s lost his chance. Will should be here, sitting beside him on the same bench where they first touched each other, where he decided without voicing it that he would go wherever Will wanted.

Now he’s ruined it. He’ll never see Will again, and even if they did meet by chance one day years from now, as far as Will’s concerned, he left without a backward glance. 

Matt ducks his head and thrusts his hands into his pockets as if trying to take up less space. there’s something in his left pocket, something cold and small and ridged. He pulls it out. It’s a little animal figure made of twisted copper wire.

“Can we go back to the base?” Matt asks the other crew member. “I forgot something.”

The man looks at him incredulously. “Are you dim?” he says. “We only just got out before the blizzard hit. Nothing can take off or land for the next day at least.”

Matt’s eyes prickle and tears spill silently. The other man relents. “Was it something important? I can ask Commander Tico to keep it safe for you.”

“Yes,” Matt sobs. “I want her to keep Will safe. I never got to say goodbye.”

The rest of the journey passes in silent introspection. Matt’s skills are called on only once near their destination when the galley area, hastily sectioned off with a welded panel, needs its temperature adjusted for the transport of perishable food and medical supplies. 

There’s a familiar lurch in Matt’s stomach as they leave hyperspace and the planet looms through the forward viewports. The pilot and co-pilot chatter in staccato phrases about wind shear and turbulence, shield tolerance and landing vectors. There’s a short exchange of professional pleasantries and code phrases over the comms, then their descent begins. 

“You know how to use one of these?” the pilot asks, turning in her seat, looking at Matt with yellow eyes set in a face patterned with gold and black skin. She’s holding up a blaster. Matt considers lying, but thinks of Will’s likely disappointment in him and shakes his head. 

“Shame. Well, keep your eyes open,” she says. “Something about that security check felt off.”

“Yeah,” the copilot calls across. “Too many pauses. At least there are a couple of x-wings looking out for us.”

The comm crackles a few more times with instructions and soon they are down on a duracrete landing pad, facing a hangar with a set of offices beside it. Nearby, just outside the hangar, there is a stack of boxes and sacks, a grav-pallet already loaded with goods, and one of the x-wings has also landed. As the shuttle’s ramp lowers, a fuel transport glides up and begins refuelling both ships.

The x-wing pilot jumps down from the cabin of the fuel transport. “Trouble,” he confirms. “Load up and get out of here. Pava’s up there to keep us safe from orbit. I had a leak when I got hit by a passing TIE so I had to land.”

Matt’s blood runs cold as he hears the two pilots talk. “Snap, are you sure?” the shuttle pilot says. “TIE fighters? There was supposed to be no First Order presence here.”

“I know what a TIE fighter looks like when it’s firing on me, and I know how they look when they explode in my sights.” Snap gives Matt a grim nod. “This planet quiet enough for you, techie? Get loading. If the First Order’s patrolling this planet, they know we’re here. Or at least they know someone shot down one of their fighters.”

Matt blanches, then runs to help reload the grav-pallet that the other crewman has already offloaded into the shuttle. It’s going to take a couple of trips. He spares a few seconds to watch Snap disengage the fuel line from his x-wing and take off to protect them from above, then hefts sacks of provisions from the duracrete up onto the pallet.

When all the goods from the landing pad are loaded, the pilot frowns. “There should be more than this. The food is all here but the medical crate is missing, so are the blankets and power cells. Matt, go look in the hangar.”

“I’ll take the offices,” the pilot adds, then turns to her copilot. “Keep the engine hot.”

Matt nods and trots off towards the hangar. As he reaches the door, he hears the unmistakeable sound of blaster fire, body armour and tramping boots. Heart racing, he ducks behind the hangar door and peers out. The pilot is lying on the ground, staring at the sky with a smoking blaster hole in her chest. A First Order officer and four stormtroopers march towards the shuttle from the office building, blasters raised.

“You there!” the officer shouts. “Kneel with your hands raised!”

Matt watches in shocked disbelief as the copilot and crewman kneel, hands in the air.

“You are charged with treason by association, and theft of First Order property.”

Matt desperately looks around him. There’s nothing he can use to defend himself. Nothing he can use to save his new friends. Except— 

His eyes light upon a small craft. It is a basic orbit-hopper with no weapons and no hyperdrive, designed for transporting materials up to larger spacecraft, but he has no alternative. He runs to it, caring nothing for the noise he must be making, and starts it up. As it moves closer to the huge bay doors, he activates every switch, jams on the autopilot, leaps out and hits the door release.

“The penalty for treason is ex—” 

The officer turns at the squealing of the doors and the roaring of an engine in distress, and gapes at the erratic craft careening towards them with black smoke puffing from its vents. The stormtroopers hesitate until the officer screams at them, then they fire on the space where, seconds ago, their two captives were just kneeling. The officer runs.

With relief, Matt sees the shuttle he arrived on lurching into the air before the ramp is fully raised and yawing precariously before righting itself. He’s about to dart out and attempt to launch himself up onto the protruding part of the ramp when the orbit-hopper explodes, showering the landing pad with burning fuel and scattering shrapnel of twisted engine parts that blast out in all directions then fall plink-plink-plink on the duracrete like rain. Dismayed, he sees the shuttle soaring up into the clouds.

The stormtroopers lie unmoving in the ear-ringing silence that follows. The officer is nowhere to be seen. Matt grabs the nearest object he can swing, a hexwrench designed for undercarriage bolts, and holds it up over his head. 

“Come out,” he hears the officer shout. “You there in the hangar.”

Matt forces his breathing to calm down and thinks of Will’s smile, of how Will would be proud of him for helping the others to escape.

“You are charged with treason for the murder of four stormtroopers and the attempted murder of an officer of the First Order. Give yourself up and we we will consider leniency.”

 _Like you were lenient with the pilot,_ Matt thinks. _You shot her before you even knew who she was. Before I even knew her name._

There’s movement outside. Matt eases silently back into the shadows behind the ruined bay door. The First Order officer steps past, looking towards the main hangar entrance.

Matt yells and swings the hexwrench down, and the officer drops at his feet. He darts through the door at back of the hangar, through the offices, past two inert, slumped humans with blaster wounds in their chests, and out of the front. There is one landspeeder there. He knows it must have a tracker fitted and he remembers Will’s tinkering with the shuttle comms. He reaches under the comms panel, pulls out all the wires until he has a nest of insulated copper and optical fiber at his feet. 

He has no idea whether he has disabled the tracker or not, but it will have to do. With no plan other than _run!_ he starts up the speeder and roars away.


	3. And there was only one escape pod

The stolen speeder is easy to dispose of—all Matt has to do is leave it outside a cantina while he goes in to find out from the subdued locals where he is, exactly, and when he comes out it is gone.

Opposite, leaning against the wall of a shop with boarded windows painted with a rough sign in Basic that says “still trading”, a boy of around fourteen watches him. They make eye contact for just a second and the boy waves a rapid gesture that he should follow. Against his misgivings, he does.

Vigilant in case he’s about to be the victim of a robbery (although he reasons that he has nothing to fear since he has nothing worth stealing) he’s led down an alleyway and through a door.  
“Welcome,” the boy says with quiet cheer. “My sister said to look out for people like you.”

“Technicians?” Matt replies with a frown. “I don’t have my tools any more.”

“No,” another voice says with a hint of laughter. A woman of a little younger than Matt’s age comes into the room. “Rebels. Welcome. Are you hungry? The food lines were shorter today so we have enough to share.”

Matt’s frown deepens. “No, if you don’t have much then I won’t—”  
“I don’t know where you’re from,” the woman says, “but here it’s rude to refuse hospitality. Especially because there isn’t much.”  
“Thank you,” Matt replies. “I accept.”

Over a meal that Matt feels guilty for not enjoying, he hears that the First Order has the planet locked down. No supply vehicles may enter or leave other than First Order troop carriers bringing Stormtroopers in to deal with dissent and then shipping the planet’s resources out.

Matt listens, shocked by what he hears. “I thought the First Order was bringing order and stability,” he says.  
The boy snorts. The woman looks at him with pity. “Order and stability for who? Not for us. They couldn’t care less about us.”  
“It’s what General Hux always told us,” Matt says, fatigue creeping up on him and loosening his tongue. He takes a sip of the cloying fruit nectar he’s been offered. The boy has none and the woman has yet to start on hers. “Every day. Pep talks.”

“You were one of them?” the boy asks, voice a low whisper. Matt nods.  
“A deserter!” the woman says, exchanging a look with her brother.  
Matt nods. “I feel...” he begins to say, intending to apologise for the sudden tiredness, maybe excuse it by explaining that he had a traumatic morning, but his head’s swimming, his ears are ringing and all he wants to do is put his head on his arms on the table and go to sleep.

As soon as he does, the woman nudges her brother.  
“Get the lieutenant. Make sure they know we caught a deserter. I might get us a better set of rooms and more medication for dad in exchange for this one.”

Matt wakes up lying on his back with pinpoint lights in his eyes and binders around his wrists and ankles.  
“Well now you’re awake,” a voice says gently, “perhaps you can tell us what a conscripted technician from the Finalizer is doing on this sithforsaken rock.”

Matt swallows thickly. His mouth feels like some nocturnal creature made a nest on his tongue and his teeth feel gritty.

“Take your time,” the officer says. “I really do have all day. There’s not much else to do here.”  
“Water?” Matt says, hopefully. The officer laughs.  
“Of course. Can’t have a deserter going thirsty. You know that girl who captured you had no idea who you are. She would’ve got more for you if only she’d done proper research. Impersonating Leader Ren! That takes guts. He’d rip your brain out through your ears if he got hold of you.”

A drinking cup is placed by Matt’s lips. He sucks gratefully at the spout, rinsing the water over his teeth and gums before swallowing.

“Better?” the officer asks. Matt nods. “Good. Now. Tell me, just for confirmation of our records, who you are.”

Something lights up a suspicion in Matt’s brain. “You already know,” he says. “I’m saying nothing.”

The officer comes closer, close enough to make Matt uncomfortable, and murmurs, “Listen, Matt, play along here. I have to look convincing for my superiors or I’ll never get you out. I’m a mole for the resistance. They contacted me to say someone didn’t make it back to base after the attack on the airfield. You fit the description.”

Matt is convinced for just long enough to state his name and designation, then he sees a look on the officer’s face he recognises as a flash of contempt and his mind clears as if mist is being puffed away by a breeze.

 _He’s lying,_ Matt realises. _The resistance didn’t expect me to go back. It’s just me, now. On my own. The resistance isn’t looking for me at all._

“If you tell me who to contact,” the officer says gently, “I can get a message to them that you’re alive and tell them where you are.” He stands up straight again and speaks more clearly. “Well, Matt the radar technician, second class. Tell me where the resistance base is and I will let you live.”

Matt closes his eyes and breaths deeply. “No,” he says.

The officer sighs. “I know you have no reason to trust me,” he says. “But I assure you, I have no interest in furthering the doctrine of the First Order. In fact there are a few of us officers who think that...” His voice lowers and he comes uncomfortably close to Matt again. “The Supreme Leader and his generals are mistaken. I only joined up because there was no other employment on my planet. Matt, tell me the names of the people I should contact and where to aim the encrypted message, and I will let your friends know you are alive. Just the system, if that makes you feel better about it.”

“No,” Matt repeats, imagining with a shudder another Starkiller obliterating another system. “You’ve got me all wrong. I can’t tell you anything because I don’t know anything.”

“That’s a shame,” the officer says with a sigh. “I know what happened at the airfield. You were quite the hero—putting yourself at risk for the two ungrateful bastards that got away. They left you, you know that? They left you to be caught and interrogated. You don’t owe them any loyalty at all.” He steps back and sneers at Matt. “One last chance to make this easy for us both. Tell me every little detail of your life from the second you left the Finalizer and I will personally see to it that you are reconditioned and reintegrated into a technical position.”

“Okay,” Matt says, ideas blossoming and fading one by one. “I’ll talk.”

And he does. After a little more than an hour the officer roars at him to shut up unless he has something useful to say, backhands him across the face and marches out.

His absence is a relief to Matt, despite the metallic taste on his tongue and the pain where the inside of his cheek mashed against his teeth.

The officer comes back in some time later, flanked by a couple of stormtroopers. Matt has no idea how much time has passed: the lighting levels never change and he thinks he might have slept. His arms, hips and knees ache a bit from the binders restricting his movement and his head aches.

“Well, well, well. You seem to be even more important than we suspected. General Hux himself has commed us to insist that you are transferred to the Finalizer. For further questioning. You know what that means,” the officer smiles. “Kylo Ren himself will probably carry out the interrogation.”

The officer holds out a datapad and activates the comms unit. A ghostly blue figure appears in mid air and speaks in a clipped voice that is familiar to Matt from the daily motivational holos.

_This is General Hux of the Finalizer. You are holding a deserter who aided the escape of a prisoner who is of personal interest to me. You will turn this man over to me for questioning. He is not to be harmed unless I order it. Prepare for my arrival._

“Well then,” the officer says. “This really is your last chance to tell me everything. I will be far kinder than General Hux will be. I can pass on any information you give me to General Hux myself and there would be no need to send you back to the Finalizer with him to die in agony at the hands of Kylo Ren.” The officer smiles unpleasantly. “So what do you have to say for yourself?”

Matt forces himself to smile back despite his aching joints and cramping muscles, and says, “I really, really, _really_ need to pee.”

The officer curses, turns, and orders the stormtroopers to _see to it._

The binders are removed from his ankles and he’s marched to the nearest ‘fresher at blaster-point. He decides he must be on the planet surface still, since he can’t hear any of the sounds he associates with the Finalizer, like the constant whirr of air scrubbers or the quiet but pervading hum of the electrical systems. He can’t hear the marching feet of stormtrooper patrols either, just the two assigned to prevent his escape.

“Hey,” he says to the one who holds the bar attached to his wrist binders. “Is this the local garrison? How many officers and troopers are stationed here? Looks pretty understaffed.”  
“Shut up,” the trooper replies. The other digs him in the back with his blaster. Once he has been supervised in the ‘fresher and marched back to his cell, he’s left alone.

He thinks he dozes again for a while. The ache in his limbs has eased somewhat since his walk along the corridor and back, and the binders allow more movement than before since the troopers have not bothered to fix the binders to their bench sockets. He’s hobbled though, as he discovers when he tries to shuffle across the small room to peer into the corridor and falls heavily onto his side. Nobody comes to help him up, so he rolls onto his back and sits up, shuffling over to the bench on his backside and levering himself up onto the hard surface again.

As he lies down again, recalling the technical specs of the Finalizer’s radar systems to pass the time, the lights brighten just enough to make Matt blink and there are marching feet and voices in the corridor.

“This way, general.” It’s the officer. “I think you will find the prisoner well cared for although rather truculent.”  
“Thank you lieutenant.” Matt feels a frisson of excitement and fear at the familiar voice. “I believe he was known for being difficult even before his defection. I will take him off your hands. Did you already send in a requisition for reinforcements?”  
“I have the forms ready for you, sir. The resistance cell that attacked the airfield killed my senior officer and four stormtroopers.”  
“Well then, I rather think that leaves you in charge for the moment. I must say, you have acted with the utmost professionalism and you are doing a fine job under difficult circumstances. Well done.”

Matt can almost hear the lieutenant preen. “Thank you sir. In here.”  
The door opens and it takes all of Matt’s willpower not to try to leap up and throw himself at the tall, redheaded man in the officers’ uniform. He’s shoved to his feet and the ankle binders widened so that he can walk with a shuffling gait.  
“There is a holding cell prepared on my shuttle,” Hux says. “See that he is secure.”

Matt is escorted by four stormtroopers, the lieutenant and Hux to a waiting shuttle with the sleek black lines and red and white markings of a First Order vehicle, shoved aboard and secured to a seat inside a holding cell. Two of the stormtroopers step off and salute. Hux salutes back and closes the door, and the shuttle engines fire up. Hux pays him no more attention, but takes position sitting up front behind the pilot. The two stormtroopers who came aboard look at him, look at each other, then ignore him.

 _I got it wrong,_ Matt thinks with despair. _I was so sure. That’s not Will. This is not the rescue I thought it was. I really am going to have my brains pulled out through my ears to betray him, and all I wanted was to say I’m sorry and hear him say it’s okay._

Matt closes his eyes and listens to the voices from the cockpit up ahead.  
“Control, First Order shuttle requesting passage through blockade. Transmitting codes and flight path now.”  
 _”Received. please stand by.”_  
“Thank you. Standing by.”  
 _”First Order shuttle, please repeat mission parameters.”_

Hux leans over and presses a button on the comms unit. “This is General Hux on General Hux’s personal shuttlecraft returning a prisoner with time-sensitive information to the Finalizer for interrogation by Supreme Leader Kylo Ren. Please get a move on or I will report to the Supreme Leader exactly _who_ was responsible for the loss of information about the current location of the resistance base.”

There’s a pause. Matt rouses himself and watches the troopers. They are facing away from him, but he can’t escape the holding cell. And even if he did, he thinks, Hux would shoot him before he got two steps.

 _”Flight path approved, General. Safe journey.”_  
“Thank you, control.”

Hux sits back and looks at the pilot. In a few seconds, they are clear of the blockade and pinpoint stars streak to blue around them as they leap to lightspeed. Matt watches as Hux stands, stretches... and slouches! His heart pounds and he’s on his feet, straining at his binders, before the two troopers remove their helmets and shake out their hair.

“Hi,” one of them says, and he recognises the gruff man who was on the supply mission. The other is Sedni, who points up ahead. “Vashaal’s in the pilot’s seat. Best we had.”  
But that is not who Matt wants to see. Will is coming towards him. Sedni unlocks the holding cell and removes his binders then both go to the front, leaving Matt with Will.

“He told me,” Will says, looking round and pointing a thumb at the other stormtrooper. “Aichell. Said you asked to come back.”  
Matt nods, rubs his eye and snuffles quietly.  
“You told Aichell to have Rose keep me safe.”  
Matt nods again.  
“Because you wanted to say something.”  
Again, Matt nods. “Sorry,” he says. “I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

And then the rest of Matt’s words flood out between damp kisses. Will barely listens, but he holds Matt close and tells him that it’s okay.

“Hey,” Will says after a few minutes of Matt not talking. “I need to know what you told them.”  
“Nothing,” Matt replies. “I didn’t say anything that would identify you or the base or anyone on it.” He shrugs. “I just talked about the shuttle and radar specs until that oily lieutenant ordered me to stop.”  
“Good,” Will says. “We’re leaving Hoth anyway. Mainly because it’s a frozen shithole and we all hate it, but if you’d said anything before we got you out, it would have been bad for the evacuation.”

Matt’s smiling and studying the fine details of Will’s cybernetic eyes, just thinking about going in for a soft kiss despite the presence of two humans dressed as stormtroopers and a Togruta pilot, when Will turns his head away and calls, “Trouble?”

“Need you up front,” Aichell says, pointing at the pilot. “That First Order guy got suspicious. They’re tracking us.”  
Will lets go of Matt’s waist and takes his hand instead. “You wait here,” he says, indicating the long passenger benches. Matt sits, but listens in to Will and Vashaal.

“Tracking through hyperspace,” Vashaal says. “Rose said they could do it. Can you slice a way out?”  
Will shakes his head. “If I did, they’d know and come after us. Best if we change course to look less suspicious.”  
“But that means following the official flight plan,” Vashaal replies after a pause. “To The Finalizer.”  
Will drums his fingers on the back of the pilot seat and says. “Yes.”

“Makes sense,” Matt says. Sedni looks at him with surprise. He shrugs. “You could claim you found me and are bringing me in. Drop me off, demand a reward and leave. Will can stay out of sight.”  
“But you’d be interrogated for real, Matt,” Sedni says. “You know too much.”  
“I don’t.” Matt sighs. “All I know is that you _were_ on Hoth. How long would I have to keep them busy for you to finish the evacuation?”

Aichell sits beside Matt. “No,” he says. “You are not going back to them any sooner than I am. You know where I got this from?” He knocks his knuckles on the thigh plate of his Stormtrooper armour. “HL 2331 at your service, sir. I bet they promised reconditioning and back on the job.” He nods knowingly at Matt’s face. “They won’t. They’ll rip what you know out of your head and then shoot you in front of the people you used to work with. As an example.”

Matt blinks back tears. Will sits on his other side and takes his hands.  
“Kind of you to offer yourself up.” He squeezes and laughs. “Kind of stupid. But thanks.”  
Matt can’t help smiling through his fears. “I would,” he says. “If it would save you.”  
“It won’t,” Sedni says. “But maybe I have a compromise.” She raises her eyebrows at Will. “We’re going to need General Hux again.”

As she explains, Vashaal flicks on the autonav and turns so that his eyes can rest on Sedni.

“We’ll get caught,” Will says after Sedni outlines her plan. He shakes his head. “For sure. I can’t pull this trick off three times.”  
“You can,” Sedni says firmly. “And you will.”

Vashaal frowns. “I can’t set foot on a First Order star destroyer without giving the whole game away,” he says, pointing to his elaborate head-tails and face markings. “There’s no helmet that will hide these. You ever see a Togruta in First Order garb, Matt? Aichell?”

Matt and Aichell shake their heads. “Okay,” Sedni adds. “You put on one of those spare pilot helmets from the lockers and wait in the shuttle. To be honest, it’s better that you do. The resistance can’t afford to lose a shuttle with command codes and a pilot who can fly it convincingly. See if you can download the newest command logs and be ready to leave on my code word: _rumble._ ”

Matt clears his throat. “Actually I think it’s the best we can hope for.” He looks up at the other four faces watching him. “I mean, maybe it’s the best I can hope for.”

Aichell claps Matt on the knee. “Okay,” he says to Vashaal. “How long before we arrive?”

“Long enough if Will’s agreed,” he says. “Need your comms magic on the helmets.”  
Will sighs and looks around. “Any votes for just running away?” No hands go up. “Okay,” he says. “At least I get to say a final _fuck you_ to my brother.”

_“Inbound shuttle, transmit clearance codes and stand by.”_  
Matt looks out of the viewport at the vast, sleek dart that is the Finalizer. He knows it has only been days since he left it, but it feels like a lifetime. Up front, Vashaal has a black, flared helmet with a visor mostly hiding his features, but it would only fool the most causal of observers into thinking he was human.

“It’ll be okay,” Matt says, surprising himself with his wish to reassure. “They’ll look at you and see _shuttle pilot_ and you’ll be invisible to them. Bit like radar technicians. As long as you are where you’re expected to be, doing what they expect you to do, they won’t even see you.”

Aichell nods and his agreement comes trough his helmet speech unit. “Yeah. Look like a trooper, act like a trooper, nobody will notice you,” he adds for Sedni’s benefit.  
The only worried person seems to be Will. He paces the shuttle in his stolen uniform, smoothing his hair back and jamming the cap on top. “Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

Then his voice changes and his posture stiffens. “You there,” he points at Matt. “Get those binders on. Be sure to make it look like they are locked or this will be the shortest subterfuge in the history of the resistance.”

“You know,” Matt says with a smile at Will. “I used to think I had a crush on Kylo Ren because he was powerful and scary. I see my mistake. You’re _terrifying.”_

 _”Inbound shuttle, this is Captain Rowley in command of hangar 9. Please follow priority landing path aurek-two. Welcome back, general.”_  
Hux is at the comms panel in a heartbeat. “Is the hangar cleared for my prisoner’s arrival? There must be no leak of his identity.”  
 _”Yes, General. The hangar is clear. I have one squad of stormtroopers patrolling the access corridors and the rest of the battalion is on stand-by should you require assistance.”_  
“Thank you Captain. I have my own stormtroopers with me. Please hold your troops off until I ask for them and do not allow anyone to board my shuttle until I send my own team back.”

Will cuts off communication with the captain and raises an eyebrow at Aichell.  
“Normal procedure for a dangerous prisoner,” the ex-stormtrooper says. “Same thing would’ve happened when Kylo Ren brought you on board. Perhaps,” he says with a huffed laugh, “Captain Rowley thinks you’re escorting yourself back to a cell.”

Matt is as ready as he can be. He has his arms behind his back with binders clamped loosely around his wrists, and he hangs his head when Sedni tells him to look more downtrodden.

Not speaking, barely breathing, they wait for Vashaal to land the shuttle. Nobody has said it out loud, but from all the _if_ -this-happens and _if_ -that-works statements, Matt is fairly sure Sedni’s plan will be a one way trip.

“We just have to do enough that _if_ we get caught, it wasn’t all for nothing,” Sedni murmurs as the shuttle touches down with the slightest of bumps.

Sedni and Aichell march in step down the ramp first and stand either side, blasters pointing back into the shuttle. Matt shuffles out next, watching his feet out of a genuine fear of tripping and accidentally revealing that his binders will fall off with a sharp shake of his arms. Will follows him out, hand blaster trained on his back.

Vashaal remains on board, monitoring the hangar comms, his helmet patched into Sedni’s so he can warn her if anything suspicious happens (like sudden silence), and keeping the engines warm.

Aichell pushes Matt to the front with a jab of his blaster then he and Sedni grip him by the elbows and march, half dragging him out, while Will remains a couple of steps behind. They are on high alert for any sign that their ruse has been rumbled.

Will is listening for footsteps running or the click of a blaster being freed from its clips, ready to swing his blaster pistol around and take out at least one First Order enemy before he’s shot. Aichell is listening in to the Stormtrooper helmet comms in case an order comes to intercept them. Sedni is focused on remembering the route from the hangar to the nearest comms control room, and Matt is focused on playing his part in getting them as close as possible without suspicion that he is occasionally nudging his ‘captors’ in the right direction.

As they round a corner at intersecting corridors and begin to breathe more easily, a pair of stormtroopers appear in front of them.

“Sir!”  
They both clatter to attention. Will pulls himself up to his full height, glares and waits.  
“We will provide backup until you reach the interrogation rooms.”

Matt knows there is no way out of this without arousing suspicion. Aichell turns to Will, who nods, and the new troopers take position just in front of Sedni and Aichell. Heard only by Vashaal, Sedni murmurs _rumble_ and Vashaal comms the Captain Rowley to say that he has been ordered by Hux to take his shuttle out and hand the hangar back to its captain.

As the small party enters another deserted corridor, Sedni counts out three slow taps with her fingers on her blaster then releases Matt and fires once. Aichell fires simultaneously, and the two real stormtroopers fall to the floor.

“Quickly,” Sedni says. “Get them out of sight.”  
“Company on its way,” Aichell confirms.  
Matt shakes his binders off. He and Will drag one stormtrooper over to a side door. Sedni and Aichell take a foot each and drag the other.

Three pairs of eyes rest on Matt.  
“This way,” he hisses, and lopes along the corridor for a few metres then ducks through a hatch into another service shaft.

He points to himself and Sedni and then points up. “Radar,” he whispers. Then he points to Aichell and Will and points down. “Computation,” he says.

Everyone nods and nobody says any more. Sedni starts climbing and Aichell starts his descent. Matt grabs Will and kisses him. “Thank you,” he says. “For all of this.”  
Will strokes Matt’s cheek. “I won’t say goodbye if you don’t,” Will says, and kisses Matt again then pushes away and vanishes down the access tube after Aichell.

Matt climbs after Sedni. She knows which deck to exit on and she stands on the tiny landing to take off her stormtrooper armour and wait for Matt to catch up. He’s only a minute behind.

“Vashaal got away,” she says. “Ejected the tracker into a synchronous orbit and landed on the surface.”

Matt sighs in relief. They listen at the hatch that leads to the service corridor. It’s silent. Matt murmurs _good luck_ and opens the hatch, and they walk out as if they have every right to be there. Matt leads the way to the main radar control room.

A couple of techies Matt has never met pass them going in the other direction and Matt exchanges nods with them.  
“Hey,” he says as they pass. “I left my tool vest in the deck six break room. Wanna help a fellow techie avoid a third demerit?”

“Ouch,” one of them says as her companion walks ahead. “What do you need?”  
“Just a medium hyperspanner, stripping tool and a soldering arc if you have them.”  
“Sure,” she says. “Look, take the whole vest. I’m off shift. Return it for me.”  
“Thank you,” Matt says. “You’re a lifesaver.”  
“Just make sure you return it full,” she warns. “Or I will report you and personally watch as you get that demerit _and_ a demotion _and_ a transfer to barrack room plumbing like that Matt guy did.”  
Matt shudders. “Really?” he says, but Sedni pokes him in the back and they move on.

The main radar control bank is automated, so there is nobody there to operate it unless there is a malfunction.  
“It’s beautiful,” Matt says, heart swelling with some part-remembered pride. “I used to hide up here when I needed space to study the specs for different systems.”  
“Sure,” Sedni replies. “Beautiful. Now let’s fuck it up.”

While he works, Matt thinks of the last time he was up here. It wasn’t even all that long ago. Days really, but his life is so different. He wants to talk about it but Sedni demands silence and concentration, so he saves it all up for later.

 _If there will be any ‘later’,_ he thinks, a wave of sadness rolling over him. _Will would let me talk. And talk. And ask if I finished talking yet and then kiss me._

They have cut all redundant services and backups, and rerouted all power to one final connection so that when it blows, it will take the entire system down. Cables are stripped back, cut short and welded so that fixing it will take a swarm of techies the best part of a shift to unravel and reconnect.

All they need to do is persuade the final cable, already smoking its insulation off, to over heat and blow with a final power surge. Matt gives Sedni a nod, and she stands by one of the exits while Matt throws every switch he can find into the ‘on’ position and darts after her as showers of sparks fill the radar control room and, a second second later, alarms blare behind them.

“This way!” Matt calls out.  
Sedni nods and they march smartly along a corridor, darting out of the path of the emergency team running to the radar control room.  
“Where are you taking us?” she asks as soon as they have a couple of seconds to breathe.  
“Escape pods,” Matt says. “There are a few on this level.”  
“Okay,” Sedni replies. “I guess they might use us for target practice but it’s better than being captured.”

The escape pods are not as close as Matt pretends. In fact they are several decks below, at hangar level, and it makes him angry now that technical levels were not provided with pods while levels that are staffed by ranking officers do have them. He _knows_ the reason is lack of space on the tech decks, because that is what he has always been taught about starship design principes, just as he _knows_ that all First Order personnel are considered to be valuable, loyal soldiers in the fight against lawlessness and chaos.

 _Yeah, right,_ he thinks as he and Sedni clamber and slip their way down an access shaft to the same level as they arrived on just an hour or so earlier. They stumble out into a corridor and run. Sedni pauses to fire on a squadron of stormtroopers who run after them and Matt, unarmed, takes cover.

Sedni can’t shoot fast enough. The troopers advance, calling for backup, and Matt’s heart sinks as another trooper rounds the far corner and lifts a blaster.

 _This is it,_ he thinks. _This is really, really it this time. I’ll be caught, tortured and killed. They will find the base, find Will and..._

Matt stares in surprise as stormtroopers drop in a barrage of blaster fire, but only for a second before Sedni is yelling at him to MOVE.

The stormtrooper who joined their side removes his helmet and laughs grimly.  
“Aichell!” Matt gasps as they reach the escape pods. Then he calls out, “Will!” when Aichell shoves him roughly into a pod and seals it.

The blast that launches the pod sends Matt lurching and sprawling into Will’s lap. Will laughs.  
“Mission a success?” he asks.  
Matt nods. “Took out the whole damn radar control system. They’ll be looking at static and ghosts for the next couple of hours at least. You?”

“Comms are down in the hangars,” Will says. “Computers are resetting, but it’ll take a few minutes.”  
“I hope it’ll be enough,” Matt says, meaning _enough time for us to get to the surface and hide._  
“Me too,” Will says. “The resistance on Batuu have been planning something big. Maybe we just handed them an opportunity.”

The trip to the surface is not a long one, but it is long enough. Matt wraps his arms around Will and kisses him, and Will responds with gentle hands in Matt’s hair and soft lips on his again when Matt pulls back.  
“You should have ejected as soon as you reached the pods,” Matt chides gently.  
“We almost did,” Will confesses. “Then Aichell heard reports of two saboteurs heading this way so he came to help. I waited because I didn’t say goodbye before and I wanted to see you again.”

Matt laughs. “You think they’ll get the systems up before we land?”  
“Hmm,” Will says, tracing the shape of Matt’s face with one finger. “I think what we did to their comms will take at least an hour. So they can’t track us with radar and they can’t send anyone else out because they can’t talk to each other. I think we’re good.”

It’s peaceful, Matt thinks, tumbling in space, caught by Batuu’s gravity, trusting in the escape pod’s rudimentary guidance and repulsor system to slow them in atmo and take them down safely. Will smiles in the glow of the amber and green status indicators inside the pod, and Matt smiles back.

“From the Finalizer’s orbit,” he says, remembering some facts from training, “an escape pod should make planetfall in about thirty minutes.”

“Thirty minutes?” Will laughs. “Well, Matt the rebel technician. What would you like to do for thirty minutes?”

Matt thinks about it for ten seconds before he feels Will’s hands on his ass. He laughs and wriggles. “We’ve got closer to twenty minutes now,” he says. “Maybe twenty-two or three.”  
“Well stop wasting it,” Will says.

Matt closes his eyes and imagines Will back in his bunk room on the Finalizer, but then there’s the triple issue that Will’s life was in danger, that Will barely knew him then, and that he’s just damaged the very piece of equipment he was duty bound to care for. So instead he remembers being with Will on Hoth: quick fumbles under layers of thermal clothing and hasty clean ups after.

“Will,” Matt says quietly above the sounds of their lips on each other’s skin. “I think... Aaah!”  
“Stop thinking,” Will says, squeezing Matt’s ass. “Just for a while, hmm?”  
“I need to talk about all this.” Matt replies. “I don’t know how not to think about it all.”  
“Later, I promise,” Will says. “When we’re down and safe and we have time, you can talk all you want and I promise I’ll listen.” Will gives Matt’s ass another firm squeeze with both hands and bites his ear gently. “Right now,” he says, “I need you to take my mind off all of this. Any way you can. Except by talking about it. okay?”

Matt feels embarrassment flush his cheeks and he nods. His stomach gives a lurch—the escape pods do not have the luxury of artificial grav generators apart from the repulsors that activate automatically when needed—and he holds tightly to Will in the small space, really designed for a single, strapped-in occupant. His head brushes the roof. Or perhaps it’s a wall or the floor. He can’t tell.

_He needs someone. He needs me too. He needs me. He needs me to distract him from his own fears, and I’m chattering on about mine!_

Matt slides a hand up inside Will’s tunic and caresses cool skin. Will sighs.  
“That’s better,” he says. “Now see if you can make me forget where we are.”

Free-fall, Matt decides, can be fun. When you can’t tell which way is up and which way is down, or sideways or anything. There’s only which way is _Will_ and what does he need from me right now. He slides Will’s tunic fastening open and pulls it off his shoulders, then kisses along Will’s prominent collarbones. Will sighs and closes his eyes.

“More,” he says. “Faster. These pods are designed for one.”

Matt doesn’t understand at first why Will would point out something so obvious. Of course he knows that the pods were designed for one occupant. They have one harness, which neither of them is using, and there isn’t enough space for either of them to be completely comfortable.

 _More,_ Matt thinks. _Faster._

He slips his hands down Will’s stomach and under the waistband of his breeches. Will is hard, and the feel of Will’s cock in his hand makes Matt start to get hard too. Will laughs, low and relaxed, then unfastens his breeches and pushes them down.

“Yes,” he says. “That’s what I need.”

Matt desperately wishes the pod was larger, large enough to hunker down and wrap his lips around Will’s cock. He tries, back hard against the inside wall, pushing Will up as far as he will go until his neck is bent against the top end of the little pod, then shuffles himself down. If he squashes himself as small as possible and cranes his neck down, he can just take the head of Will’s cock into his mouth.

After a few minutes, Will taps him on the shoulder. “Baby, I love that, but come back up here.”  
Matt eases himself back up to meet Will’s kiss. He settles for wrapping one hand around Will’s cock and slipping the other under Will’s balls. He kisses Will, softly at first, waiting for Will to show him what he wants, telling Will between kisses what a wonderful, beautiful angel he is.

The descent is getting bumpier.  
 _Atmo,_ Matt thinks as Will moans against his lips and thrusts into his hand. He can tell which way is up and which is down now, and imagines the heat shielding on the exterior of the pod burning away as friction with air, insubstantial at normal speeds, rips past.  
 _The repulsors will kick in any second,_ he thinks.

Matt kisses Will and moves one hand to feel for the webbing that should be holding the occupant safe in the cradle of the pod. He grips it, stretches it across Will’s torso, and somehow fastens the two clips that will hold Will safely in the padded couch.

Then he kisses along Will’s jaw to the spot under his ear that Matt knows is sensitive. He drags his teeth across it and slips his hand back under Will’s balls. Will thrusts up but can’t go anywhere and releases a stream of curses that makes Matt laugh. He’s light headed now, on the verge of dizziness, wondering if the pod is tumbling and if the repulsors will correct it before they slam into the ground.

They do. Matt is on his back with Will suspended above him. He feels the vibration of the repulsors kicking them in a rapid fire sequence of manoeuvres that will slow them and turn them the right way up for landing. Above him, just before the final flip, Will cries out, comes, and passes out with his head lolling forward from the webbing.

Matt realises they are still upside down but there is nothing he can do about it.  
 _At least,_ he thinks before the impact knocks the wind out of him, _Will should be okay._

The pod lands, slides, collides with something and shudders to a halt, and Matt remembers to breathe. The air quality sensor light flashes red and amber, and Matt wonders if that is why he feels light headed and heavy-limbed, then Will starts to laugh.

“We’re alive, Mattie, we’re fucking _alive!_ ”  
Matt can’t help the giggle that bubbles up from his chest. He buries his face in the crook of Will’s neck and he laughs until he’s a sobbing, heaving mess.  
Will’s no better. They cling to each other, laughter too loud in the small space, too loud to be absorbed by the cushioned interior of the pod, too loud in each others’ ears, until they both fall silent. Out of energy. Out of things to say to each other.

Out of oxygen.

He wakes up with a thumping headache. His leg aches with a dull pain that threatens to stab if he moves wrong. It’s dark and cool, and a shape moves nearby as if swimming through the air.  
“Matt? Matt!” He recognises the voice but can’t place it. “You made it. We all made it. Will’s next door. I’ll get him.”

Relief floods him and by the time Will comes though to hold his hand, he’s rubbing at his eyes and suppressing an upwelling of emotion.  
“Hey,” Will says, hands on Matt’s shoulders. A weight dips the bed as Will perches on the edge. “You’re okay. Nothing a bacta splint can’t mend. You’re on some powerful painkillers. The best they had, for you. You might be due another dose.”

“I don’t remember what happened,” Matt says mournfully. “We were in an escape pod and... and now we’re here. Did it work? Are we safe?”  
“Yes and no,” Will says with a laugh. “Yes it worked. No we’re never safe. But the Finalizer is dead in orbit. The resistance here was waiting for a chance to attack. We gave them one. They cleared off the surface cannon, hit the hyperdrive hard, killed the navicomputers so it can’t tell which way is up, and wiped out life support in the hangars so the TIEs couldn’t scramble. It’s being evacuated as we speak. The only thing stopping us from raiding the ship for more supplies is that the pilots need to rest.”

“I’m a pilot,” Matt says with a grin. “As you know.”  
Will laughs. “You are,” he says. “We’re trying to find a way of bringing the entire ship down somewhere remote so we can scavenge the rest for parts and supplies. Before they find a way to tow it in hyperspace. Any ideas?”  
“No,” Matt says with a sad smile. “Let them go. I feel bad for all the techies up there. Even the ones who were mean to me.”

Will pivots and lies beside Matt on the bed, careful not to knock the bacta-splint encasing his leg.  
“I promised,” he says. “In the escape pod. That you could talk and I would listen.”  
Matt shuffles to make room for Will, wincing at the sharp pain in his leg when he tries to move.  
“You did,” he says.  
“So talk to me, Matt. Tell me all about it. Every detail.”  
Matt blinks and sniffles. Will wipes away his tear with a finger.

“I remember,” Matt says hesitantly, “when I was about six years old, Stormtroopers came to school.”  
He stops. Will squeezes his hand.  
“Go on,” he says. “I’m listening.”


End file.
